398 



ADDENDUM. 



probably experience no difficulties in going clear through to the head- 

 waters." 



Dr. Whitmore, an American, has carried up two small steamers for 

 the Peruvian government, to be used in the exploration and survey of 

 the Peruvian tributaries of the Amazon. American engineers, firemen, 

 and mechanics, with one or two adventurers, went out in them. 



Here, then, we have, and that, too, upon no contemptible scale, the 

 eommencement of the settlement of that great country. Whether the 

 settlers find gold or not, of which 4 have no doubt, though I cannot 

 endorse the reports of its being found in 25-pound lumps, and I think 

 that its collection will be attended with great exposure, privation, and 

 hardship, I am satisfied that they will never come away. The few 

 things there necessary for the maintenance of a comfortable life, the 

 little labor required to obtain those necessaries, the delicious and rather 

 enervating climate, and the absence of all the restraints that are found 

 tedious and irksome to the natural man amid the refinements of civili- 

 zation, all operate with a powerful force to keep them there ; and I 

 think that, from this time forth, population, civilization, and prosperity 

 will march with an ever forward step over those wild domains. 



I have been always cautious in my report in speaking of the salubrity 

 of that country ; and I feared that, even only in so far as I had gone in 

 this respect, my account should be disbelieved by many; but hear what 

 Wallace, an English naturalist, who was in the country at the same 

 time that I was, and has since published a narrative of his sojourn there, 

 says (p. 16) upon this point : 



"The climate, so far as we have yet experienced, was delightful. The 

 thermometer did not rise above 81 in the afternoon, nor sink below *74° 

 during the night. The mornings and evenings were most agreeably 

 cool ; and we had generally a shower and a fine breeze in the afternoon, 

 which was very refreshing, and purified the air. On moonlight evenings, 

 till 8 o'clock, ladies walk about the streets and suburbs without any 

 head-dress, and in ball-room attire ; and the Brazilians in their roginhan 

 sit outside their houses, bare-headed, and in their shirt sleeves, till 9 or 

 10 o'clock, quite unmindful of the night airs and heavy dews of the 

 tropics, which we have been accustomed to consider so deadly." 



He is speaking of the climate at Para. Again he says, (p. 429 :) 

 " Had I only judged of the climate of Para from my first residence of 

 a year, I might be thought to have been impressed by the novelty of 

 the tropical climate ; but on my return from a three years soj ourn on 

 the upper Amazon and Rio Negro, I was equally struck with the won- 

 derful freshness and brilliancy of the atmosphere, and the balmy mild- 



