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Transcriber's Note.
A list of the changes made can be found at the end of the book.
TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON
TRAVELS
ON THE
AMAZON
BY
A. R.
WALLACE
LONDON
MELBOURNE·&·TORONTO
WARD·LOCK·&·CO·LIMITED
1911
PREFACE.
AN earnest desire to visit a tropical country, to behold theluxuriance of animal and vegetable life said to existthere, and to see with my own eyes all those wonders whichI had so much delighted to read of in the narratives oftravellers, were the motives that induced me to break throughthe trammels of business and the ties of home, and start for
"Some far land where endless summer reigns."
My attention was directed to Pará and the Amazon by Mr.Edwards's little book, "A Voyage up the Amazon," and Idecided upon going there, both on account of its easiness ofaccess and the little that was known of it compared with mostother parts of South America.
I proposed to pay my expenses by making collections inNatural History, and I have been enabled to do so; and thepleasures I have found in the contemplation of the strangeand beautiful objects continually met with, and the deepinterest arising from the study in their native wilds of thevaried races of mankind, have been such as to determine mycontinuing in the pursuit I have entered upon, and to causeme to look forward with pleasure to again visiting the wild andluxuriant scenery and the sparkling life of the tropics.
In the following pages I have given a narrative of myjourneys and of the impressions excited at the time. Thefirst and last portions are from my journals, with little alteration;but all the notes made during two years, with thevigreater part of my collections and sketches, were lost by theburning of the ship on my homeward voyage. From thefragmentary notes and papers which I have saved I havewritten the intermediate portion, and the four last chapterson th