318 MY LIFE 



coloured waters of our Welsh and Highland streams, which 

 have their sources among peat-bogs. A delightful peculiarity 

 of all these black or clear water rivers is that their shores are 

 entirely free from mosquitoes, as is amusingly referred to 

 in my brother's letter, already quoted in chapter xviii. 



After my journey the river Uaupes remained unknown to 

 the world for thirty years, when, in 1881 and 1882, Count 

 Ermanno Stradelli, after spending two years in various parts 

 of the Amazon valley, ascending the Purus and Jurua rivers, 

 visited this river to beyond the first cataracts. Having fever 

 he returned to Manaos (Barra), and joined an expedition to 

 determine the boundary between Brazil and Venezuela through 

 an unknown region, and descended the Rio Branco to Manaos. 

 He then went a voyage up the Madeira river, returning home 

 in 1884. In 1887 he again visited South America, ascending 

 the Orinoko, passed through the Cassiquiare to the Rio Negro, 

 and having become much interested in the rock-pictures he 

 had met with in various parts of these rivers, he again made 

 a voyage up the Uaupes, this time penetrating to the Jurupari 

 cataract, which I had failed to reach, and going about a hun- 

 dred miles beyond it. This last voyage was made in 1890- 

 189 1. His only objects seem to have been geographical and 

 anthropological explorations, and he has probably explored 

 a larger number of the great tributaries of the Amazon and 

 Orinoko than any other European. 



For a knowledge of this great traveller I am indebted to 

 Mr. Heawood, the librarian of the Royal Geographical Society, 

 who, in reply to my inquiry as to any ascents of the Uaupes 

 since my journey, sent me two volumes of the Bolletino della 

 Societa Geograplrica Italiana (1887 and 1900), which give, 

 so far as he can ascertain, all that is known of Count Stradelli's 

 work. This is most scanty. In the 1887 volume there is a 

 very short abstract of his earlier explorations, with a portion 

 of his journey up the Orinoko in that year. In the volume 

 for 1900 is an article by the Count, almost entirely devoted to 

 a description, with drawings, of all the rock inscriptions which 

 he found in the Uaupes. These drawings are very carefully 

 made, and are twelve in number, each representing a whole 



