238 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
real character far better than in letters written to 
his botanical correspondents. We here see his 
interest in and sympathy with the natives, his 
horror of slavery, and his deep feeling for the 
grandeur and beauty of the broader aspects of 
nature around him. His few remarks (and anecdote) 
on the Education question I did not strike out, 
because it is even more to the point now than it 
was at the time he wrote.] 
To Mr. John Teas dale 
Barra do Rio Negro, 3, 1851. 
You ask me about the temperature. The lowest 
I have known since arriving in Brazil was one 
morning at 5 o'clock on the shores of the Bay of 
Marajo, when the thermometer marked 70°, and 
everybody complained of its being dreadfully cold. 
I was obliged to leave my hammock some hours 
earlier to get additional covering. The highest 
temperature observed was at Santarem, where 
it was a little more than 90° ; but I have known it 
higher than this in the south of France, and at 
Rio they have it sometimes at 110°. It is the 
sustained heat that we complain of here : at San- 
tarem for many days and nights together the 
thermometer was never below 80°. This it is 
which produces the languor which preys on every 
one in this clime, and more on natives than on 
strangers. . . . 
Now about turtle. Santarem lies some distance 
below the great turtle country, and when it 
appeared there it was very dear. Here we are in 
the very centre of the region of turtles, and we 
