268 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
Since I came to Para the fevers of the Rio Negro 
have proved fatal to two of the persons mentioned 
in Edwards's Voyage — Bradley and Berchenbrinck, 
very fine young men both. Wallace's younger 
brother, who came out from Liverpool along with 
me, died last May. He had gone there, poor fellow, 
to embark for England, took the yellow fever, and 
died in a few days. 
The Rio Negro might be called the Dead River 
— I never saw such a deserted region. In Sta. Isabel 
and Castanheiro there was not a soul as I came up, 
and three towns, marked on the most modern map 
I have, have altogether disappeared from the face 
of the earth. We had beautiful weather in coming 
up, and to this may be attributed that I and all my 
people arrived here in good health. . . . 
Mr. Wallace came up from the Barra more than 
a month before me, escaped the fever on his 
way, but the day he set foot in Sao Joaquim was 
attacked. 
What a beautiful little palm is the Mauritia 
carinata of Humboldt ! It is remarkable for grow- 
ing in tufts, and as I sit writing I can distinguish a 
cluster of perhaps fifty stems on the opposite shore 
of the river. It is abundant on all the Upper Rio 
Negro. It would fruit beautifully with you. 
To Mr, John Teasdale 
Sao Gabriel, Rio Negro, 24, 1852. 
When I wrote to you from the Barra I was on 
the point of starting on my voyage up the Rio 
