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his explorations dispels any illusions of 

 the luxury of travel in tropical forests 

 and makes the hardships undergone 

 by Wallace in the Aru Islands or by 

 Schweinfurt among the Nairn Nairn 

 people of Central Africa seem insignifi- 

 cant. 



The book describes two expeditions, 

 in 1 897-1 898 and 1 900-1 901, from Trin- 

 idad up the Orinoco toward the head- 

 waters of the Caura, with side trips up 

 the Nichare and cross-country expedi- 

 tions cut through the forest to Mounts 

 Turagua and Ameha, two of those re- 

 markable mesa- like mountains which 

 are characteristic of southern Venezuela. 

 It is a narrative of daily experiences and 

 observations and sparkles with that 

 humor which is a necessary quality of 

 a good explorer. The observations on 

 animals and plants are unusually vivid 

 and interesting and written with care, 

 yet nowhere prosaic. His ability to take 

 the reader into his confidence and to 

 picture the trials of a naturalist in the 

 tropics may be illustrated by the follow- 

 ing : 



" If the hornets pay attention to the 

 person of the collector the ants devote 

 themselves to looking after his collec- 

 tions, so that what with having to dodge 

 a being with wings and a sting who 

 means business when he has made his 

 mind up, and trying to devise ways for 

 keeping his property out of the way of 

 an insect that can find a grain of sugar 

 in a stack of hay, the amateur naturalist 

 acquires his first real knowledge of the 

 powers of those so-called lower forms 

 of life." 



It were beyond the province of a re- 

 view to enter in any detail, but as I 

 run over the pages of my friend's book, 

 to collect the materials for which has 

 twice almost cost him his life, certain 

 of his observations seem most worthy 

 of attention. His observations on the 

 healthfulness of Ciudad- Bolivar, situated 

 on the edge of a swamp into which all 

 the village refuse is dumped, those re- 

 garding the Indians' confirmative belief 



in the mosquito as a carrier of the ma- 

 larial fevers, and the presence of malig- 

 nant ulcers in certain localities, remind- 

 ing one of the Bagdad boil, have a bear- 

 ing upon recent medical researches. 

 His descriptions of the parasol ants, 

 Oecodoma, and the manufacture of their 

 fungus gardens remind one of Belt's 

 historic descriptions. His remarks re- 

 garding the power of insects to locate 

 at a distance the objects of their desires 

 and make straight for them is as inter- 

 esting as anything Maeterlinck has 

 written about the bee. 



The ichthyologist will find valuable 

 observations in the book on the strange 

 cannibal fishes of the Caura, and laugh at 

 the antics of the alligator disturbed by 

 the explosion of a dynamite cartridge in 

 its particular pool. The rubber experts 

 will read with interest of the forests of a 

 new rubber tree discovered on the Ni- 

 chare, a branch of the Caura, and of the 

 Indian method of tapping the rubber tree 

 in this region. Those who know the cu- 

 marin perfume of the Tonka bean will be 

 interested to learn that these forests fur- 

 nish the world with the sweet-smeiling 

 bean, and that their collection is a lucra- 

 tive business. The geologist will find 

 enough of interest in Andre's descrip- 

 tions of the formations of the rocky can- 

 yons and river bottoms of the Caura and 

 mesa -like mountains to hold his atten- 

 tion. The ornithologist will find de- 

 scribed and pictured in cromolithographs 

 at least two rare gorgeous tropical birds 

 and mention of the habits of many other 

 new species, while those ladies who wear 

 egrets without a thought of where they 

 come from will get from these pages the 

 scolding of an ornithologist for assisting 

 in the extinction of the beautiful trop- 

 ical birds from which at their death the 

 graceful egrets are plucked. The ex- 

 citing part of the book to the average 

 reader, however, begins in chapter xvin 

 with a description of the wrecking in the 

 rapids of the boat containing all the pro- 

 visions, clothes, tools, and note books of 

 the party. From this point on, the center 



