186 
THE UPPER AMAZONS. 
Chap. III. 
common enough in the forest, but no accident happened 
during the whole time of my residence. 
I suffered most inconvenience from the difficulty of 
getting news from the civilised world down river, from 
the irregularity of receipt of letters, parcels of books 
and periodicals, and towards the latter part of my resi- 
dence from ill health arising from bad and insufficient 
food. The want of intellectual society, and of the 
varied excitement of European life, was also felt most 
acutely, and this, instead of becoming deadened by 
time, increased until it became almost insupportable. 
I was obliged, at last, to come to the conclusion that 
the contemplation of Nature alone is not sufficient to 
fill the human heart and mind. I got on pretty well 
when I received a parcel from England by the steamer 
once in two or four months. I used to be very eco- 
nomical with my stock of reading lest it should 
be finished before the next arrival and leave me 
utterly destitute. I went over the periodicals, the 
'"Athenaeum,"" for instance, with great deliberation, 
going through every number three times ; the first 
time devouring the more interesting articles, the second, 
the whole of the remainder ; and the third, reading all 
the advertisements from beginning to end. If four 
months (two steamers) passed without a fresh, parcel, 
I felt discouraged in the extreme. I was worst off in 
the first year, 1850, when twelve months elapsed with- 
out letters or remittances. Towards the end of this 
time my clothes had worn to rags ; I was barefoot, a 
great inconvenience in tropical forests, notwithstanding 
statements to the contrary that have been published by 
