284 MY LIFE 



found there ; and also in the hopes of finding some new and 

 better collecting ground near the Andes. These journeys 

 were made, but the second was cut short by delays and the 

 wet season. My health also had suffered so much by a 

 succession of fevers and dysentery that I did not consider it 

 prudent to stay longer in the country. 



Although during the last two journeys in the Rio Negro 

 and Orinoko districts I had made large miscellaneous 

 collections, and especially of articles of native workmanship, 

 I never found any locality at all comparable with Para as a 

 collecting ground. The numerous places I visited along 

 more than a thousand miles of river, all alike had that 

 poverty of insect and bird-life which characterized Barra 

 itself, a poverty which is not altogether explicable. The 

 enormous difficulties and delays of travel made it impossible 

 to be at the right place at the right season; while the 

 excessive wetness of the climate rendered the loss of the only 

 month or two of fine weather irreparable for the whole year. 

 The comparative scantiness of native population at all the 

 towns of the Rio Negro, the small amount of cultivation, the 

 scarcity of roads through the forest, and the want of any 

 guide from the experience of previous collectors, combined to 

 render my numerous journeys in this almost totally unknown 

 region comparatively unproductive in birds and insects. As 

 it happened (owing to Custom House formalities at Barra), 

 the whole of my collections during the last two voyages were 

 with me on the ship that was burnt, and were thus totally 

 lost. On the whole, I am inclined to think that the best 

 places now available for a collector in the country I visited 

 are at the San Jeronym and Juarite falls on the River 

 Uaupes, and at Javita, on a tributary of the Orinoko, if the 

 whole of the dryest months could be spent there. So far as 

 I have heard, no English traveller has to this day ascended 

 the Uaupes river so far as I did, and no collector has stayed 

 any time at Javita, or has even passed through it. There is, 

 therefore, an almost unknown district still waiting for explora- 

 tion by some competent naturalist. 



One letter I wrote from Guia on the Upper Rio Negro, 



