Chap. YL 
CONCLUSION. 
417 
What has struck me powerfully is the immeasurably 
greater diversity and interest of human character and 
social conditions in a single civilised nation, than in 
equatorial South America where three distinct races 
of man live together. The superiority of the bleak 
north to tropical regions however is only in their social 
aspect, for I hold to the opinion that although humanity 
can reach an advanced state of culture only by battling 
with the inclemencies of nature in high latitudes, it is 
under the equator alone that the perfect race of the 
future will attain to complete fruition, of man's beautiful 
heritage, the earth. 
The following day, having no wind, we drifted out of 
the mouth of the Para with the current of fresh water 
that is poured from the mouth of the river, and in 
twenty-four hours advanced in this way seventy miles 
on our road. On the 6th of June, when in V° 55^ N. 
lat. and 52^ 30' W. long., and therefore about 400 miles 
from the mouth of the main Amazons, we passed nume- 
rous patches of floating grass mingled with tree-trunks 
and withered foliage. Amongst these masses I espied 
many fruits of that peculiarly Amazonian tree the 
Ubussu palm ; and this was the last I saw of the Great 
River. 
VOL. II. 
E E 
