Chapter XII (2)

L’étude du mélange des races humaines qui se croisent dans ces
régions m’a aussi beaucoup occupé et je me suis procuré de
nombreuses photographies de tous les types que j’ai pu observer. Le
principal résultat auquel je suis arrivé est que les races se
comportent les unes vis-à-vis des autres comme des espèces
distinctes; c. à. d. que les hybrides qui naissent du croisement
d’hommes de race différente sont toujours un mélange des deux types
primitifs et jamais la simple reproduction des caractères de l’un ou
de l’autre des progéniteurs, comme c’est le cas pour les races
d’animaux domestiques.

Je ne dirai rien de mes autres collections qui ont pour la plupart
été faites par mes jeunes compagnons de voyage, plutôt en vue
d’enrichir notre musée que de résoudre quelques questions
scientifiques. Mais je ne saurais laisser passer cette occasion sans
exprimer ma vive reconnaissance pour toutes les facilités que j’ai
dues à la bienveillance de Votre Majesté, dans mes explorations.
Depuis le Président jusqu’au plus humbles employés des provinces que
j’ai parcourues, tous ont rivalisé d’empressement pour me faciliter
mon travail et la Compagnie des vapeurs de l’Amazone a été d’une
libéralité extrême à mon égard. Enfin, Sire, la générosité avec
laquelle vous avez fait mettre un navire de guerre à ma disposition
m’a permis de faire des collections qui seraient restées
inaccessibles pour moi, sans un moyen de transport aussi vaste et
aussi rapide. Permettez-moi d’ajouter que de toutes les faveurs dont
Votre Majesté m’a comblé pour ce voyage, la plus précieuse a été la
présence du Major Coutinho, dont la familiarité avec tout ce qui
regarde l’Amazone a été une source intarissable de renseignements
importants et de directions utiles pour éviter des courses oiseuses
et la perte d’un temps précieux. L’étendue des connaissances de
Coutinho, en ce qui touche l’Amazone, est vraiment encyclopédique,
et je crois que ce serait un grand service à rendre à la science que
de lui fournir l’occasion de rédiger et de publier tout ce qu’il a
observé pendant ses visites répétées et prolongées dans cette partie
de l’Empire. Sa coopération pendant ce dernier voyage a été des plus
laborieuses; il s’est mis à la zoologie comme si les sciences
physiques n’avaient pas été l’objet spécial de ses études, en même
temps qu’il a fait par devers lui de nombreuses observations
thermométriques, barométriques, et astronomiques, qui ajouteront de
bons jalons à ce que l’on possède déjà sur la météorologie et la
topographie de ces provinces. C’est ainsi que nous avons les
premiers porté le baromètre au milieu des collines d’Almeyrim, de
Monte Alégre, et d’Ereré et mesuré leurs sommets les plus élevés.

L’étude de la formation de la vallée de l’Amazone m’a naturellement
occupé, bien que secondairement, dès le premier jour que je l’ai
abordée.

* * * * *

Mais il est temps que je finisse cette longue épître en demandant
pardon à Votre Majesté d’avoir mis sa patience à une aussi rude
épreuve.

De Votre Majesté le serviteur le plus dévoué et le plus affectueux,

L. AGASSIZ.[91]

_February 24th._—Pará, Nazareth. Our time has passed so quietly here that it gives me nothing to record. Mr. Agassiz has found himself in such absolute need of rest, after having arranged and put in order for transportation to the United States the collections accumulated, that our intended trip to the island of Marajo has been postponed day after day. Yesterday I witnessed a religious procession in Pará,—one of the many festas said to be gradually dying out, and to be already shorn of much of their ancient glory. It represented a scene from the passion of Christ. The life-size figure of the Saviour, sinking under the cross, is borne on a platform through the streets. Little girls, dressed as angels, walk before it, and it is accompanied by numerous dignitaries of the Church. Altars are illuminated in the different churches; the populace, even down to the children, are dressed in black; and the balconies of every house filled with figures in mourning, waiting for the sad procession to pass by.

_February 28th._—Off Marajo, in the steamer Tabatinga. All great rivers, as the Nile, the Mississippi, the Ganges, the Danube, have their deltas; but the largest river in the world, the Amazons, is an exception to this rule. What, then, is the geological character of the great island which obstructs its opening into the ocean? This is the question which has made a visit to Marajo of special interest to Mr. Agassiz. Leaving Pará at midnight, we reached the little town of Sourés early this morning. It is a village lying on the southeastern side of the island, and so far seaward that, in the dry season, when the diminished current of the Amazonian waters is overborne by the tides, the water is salt enough to afford excellent sea-bathing, and is resorted to for that purpose by many families from Pará. At this moment, however, the water has not even a brackish character. The only building of any interest in the town is the old Jesuit church, a remnant of the earliest chapter in the civilization of South America. However tinged with ambition and a love of temporal power, the work of the Jesuits in Brazil tended toward the establishment of an organized system of labor, which one cannot but wish had been continued. All that remains of the Jesuit missions goes to prove that they were centres of industry. These men contrived to impart, even to the wandering Indian, some faint reflection of their own persistency and steadfastness of purpose. Farms were connected with all the Indian missions; under the direction of the fathers, the Indians learned something of agriculture, which the Jesuits readily saw to be one of the great civilizing influences in a country so fertile. They introduced a variety of vegetables and grains, and had herds of cattle where cattle now are hardly known. Humboldt, speaking of the destruction of the Jesuit missions, says, in reference to the Indians of Atures, on the Orinoco: “Formerly, being excited to labor by the Jesuits, they did not want for food. The fathers cultivated maize, French beans, and other European vegetables. They even planted sweet oranges and tamarinds round the villages; and they possessed twenty or thirty thousand head of cows and horses in the savannas of Atures and Carichana.... Since the year 1795, the cattle of the Jesuits have entirely disappeared. There now remain as monuments of the ancient cultivation of these countries, and the active industry of the first missionaries, only a few trunks of the orange and tamarind in the savannas, surrounded by wild trees.”[92]

Our walk through the little village of Sourés brought us to the low cliffs on the shore, which we had already seen from the steamer. The same formations prevail all along the coast of this island that we have found everywhere on the banks of the Amazons. Lowest, a well-stratified, rather coarse sandstone, immediately above which, and conformable with it, are finely laminated clays, covered by a crust. Upon this lies the highly ferruginous sandstone, in which an irregular cross stratification frequently alternates with the regular beds; above this, following all the undulations of its surface, is the well-known reddish sandy clay, with quartz pebbles scattered through its mass, and only here and there faint traces of an indistinct stratification. This afternoon Mr. Agassiz has been again on shore, examining the formation of both banks of the Igarapé Grande, the river at the mouth of which stands the town of Sourés. He has returned delighted with the result of his day’s work, having not only obtained the most complete evidence that the geological formation of Marajo corresponds exactly with that of the Amazonian Valley, but having also obtained some very important data with respect to the present encroachments of the sea upon the shore. He found upon the beach, partially covered by sea-sand, the remains of a forest which evidently grew in a peat-bog, and which the ocean is gradually laying bare.

_February 29th._—Early this morning we crossed the Pará River, and anchored at the entrance of the bay within which stands the town of Vigia. We landed, and while the boatmen were dragging the net, we wandered along the beach, which is bordered by thick forest, now full of flowers. Here we found the same geological formations as on the Marajo shore, and on the beach the counterpart of the ancient forest which Mr. Agassiz unearthed yesterday on the opposite coast. There can hardly be more convincing evidence that the rivers which empty into the Amazons near its mouth, like all those higher up, as well as the main stream itself, have cut their way through identical formations, which were once continuous. Evidently these remains of forests on the beaches of Vigia Bay and at the mouth of the Igarapé Grande are parts of one forest, formerly uninterrupted and covering the whole of the intervening space now filled by the so-called Pará River. We followed the beach to the entrance of an igarapé, which here opens into the river, and which looked most tempting with the morning shadows darkening its cool recesses. As the boatmen had not been very successful in fishing, I proposed we should put their services to better use and row up this inviting stream. To this day, though I have become accustomed to these forest water-paths and have had so many excursions in them, they have lost none of their charm. I never see one without longing to follow its picturesque windings into the depths of the wood; and to me the igarapé remains the most beautiful and the most characteristic feature of the Amazonian scenery. This one of Vigia was especially pretty. Clumps of the light, exquisitely graceful Assai palm shot up everywhere from the denser forest; here and there the drooping bamboo, never seen in the higher Amazons, dipped its feathery branches into the water, covered sometimes to their very tips with purple bloom of convolvulus; yellow Bignonias carried their golden clusters to the very summits of some of the more lofty trees; while white-flowering myrtles and orange-colored mallows bordered the stream. Life abounded in this quiet retreat. Birds and butterflies were numerous; and we saw an immense number of crabs of every variety of color and size upon the margin of the water. However, it was not so easy to catch them as it seemed. They would sit quietly on the trunks of all the old trees or decaying logs projecting from the bank, apparently waiting to be taken; but the moment we approached them, however cautiously, they vanished like lightning either under the water or into some crevice near by. Notwithstanding their nimbleness, however, Mr. Agassiz succeeded in making a considerable collection. We saw also an immense army of caterpillars, evidently following some concerted plan of action. They were descending the trunk of a large tree in a solid phalanx about two handbreadths in width, and six or eight feet in length; no doubt coming down to make their chrysalids in the sand. We returned to the steamer at ten o’clock; and, after breakfast, finding our anchorage-ground somewhat rough as the tide came in, we went a little higher up, and entered the Bahia do Sul. Here again we went on shore to see the net drawn, this time more successfully. We should have had a delightful walk on the beach again, had it not been for hosts of minute flies which hovered about us, and had a power of stinging quite disproportionate to their size. On returning we met with an unforeseen difficulty. The tide had been falling during our walk, and the canoe could not approach the beach within several yards. The gentlemen plunged in, and walked out over knees in water; while the boatmen made a chair of their arms and carried me through the surf.

_March 5th._—Our excursion in the harbor closed with a visit to the small island of Tatuatuba, distant about six miles from Pará. In order to examine the shores, we made the circuit of the island on foot. Here again the same geological structure presented itself; and there was one spot in particular where the sharp, vertical cut of the bank facing the beach presented an admirable section of the formations so characteristic of the Amazonian Valley; the red, sandy clay of the upper deposit filling in all the undulations and inequalities of the sandstone below, the surface of which was remarkably irregular. The sea is making great encroachments on the shore of this island. Senhor Figueiredo, who lives here with his family and by whom we were received with much hospitality, told us that during the last eighteen or twenty years, the beach had receded considerably in some places; the high-water line being many yards beyond its former limit. The result of this excursion has shown that, with the exception of some low mud-islands nearly level with the water, all the harbor islands lying in the mouth of the Amazons are, geologically speaking, parts of the Amazonian Valley, having the same structure. They were, no doubt, formerly continuous with the shore, but are separated now, partly by the fresh waters cutting their way through the land to the ocean, partly by the progress of the sea itself.

_March 24th._—Our quiet life at Nazareth, though full of enjoyment for tired travellers, affords little material for a journal. A second excursion along the coast has furnished Mr. Agassiz with new evidence of the rapid changes in the outline of the shore, produced by the encroachment of the sea. So fast is this going on that some of the public works near the coast are already endangered by the advance of the ocean upon the land. During the past week he has been especially occupied in directing the work of a photographist employed by Senhor Pimenta Bueno, who, with his usual liberality towards the scientific objects of the expedition, is collecting in this way the portraits of some remarkable palms and other trees about his house and grounds. One of the most striking is a huge Sumauméra, with buttressed trunk. These buttresses start at a distance of about eight or ten feet from the ground, spreading gradually toward the base; they are from ten to twelve feet in depth. The lower part of the trunk is thus divided into open compartments, sometimes so large that two or three persons can stand within them. This disposition to throw out flanks or wings is not confined to one kind of tree, but occurs in many families; it seems, indeed, a characteristic feature of forest vegetation here. Occasionally the buttresses partially separate from the main trunk, remaining attached to it only at the point from which they start, so that they look like distinct supports propping the tree. I copy here an extract from Mr. Agassiz’s notes upon the vegetation of the Amazons, in which allusion is made to the Sumauméra.

“Any one coming from the North to the Tropics, if he has been in the habit of observing the vegetation about him, even without having made botany a special study, is, in a measure, prepared to appreciate the resemblances and the differences between plants of the tropical and those of the temperate regions. An acquaintance with the Robinia (Locust-trees), for instance, or with the large shrub-like Lotus, and other woody Leguminosæ, will enable him to recognize the numerous representatives of that family, forming so large a part of the equatorial vegetation; and, even should he never have seen specimens of the Mimosa in gardens or hot-houses, their delicate, susceptible foliage will make them known to him; he cannot fail to be struck with the inexhaustible combinations and forms of their pinnate leaves, as well as with the variety in their tints of green, the diversity in their clusters of leaves and in their pods and seeds. But there are families with which he fancies himself equally familiar, the tropical representatives of which will never seem to him like old acquaintances. Thus the tree which furnishes the Indian rubber belongs to the Milk-weed family. Every one knows the Milk-weeds of the North, to be seen, as humble herbs, all along the roadsides, on the edges of our woods and in the sands of our beaches. Yet on the Amazons, the Euphorbiaceæ, so small and unobtrusive with us, assume the form of colossal trees, constituting a considerable part of its strange and luxuriant forest-growth. The giant of the Amazonian woods, whose majestic flat crown towers over all other trees, while its white trunk stands out in striking relief from the surrounding mass of green (the Sumauméra), is allied to our mallows. Some of the most characteristic trees of the river-shore belong to these two families. Our paleontologists who attempt to restore the forests of older geological times should keep in mind this fact of the striking contrasts presented under different latitudes by the same families. Of course the equatorial regions teem with plants and trees belonging to families either entirely unknown or but poorly represented in more temperate latitudes; and these distinct groups naturally arrest the attention of the botanist, and perhaps awaken his interest more than those with which he is already familiar under other forms. But, while these different families are recognized as distinct, and no doubt deserve to be considered by themselves as natural groups, I believe that much might be learned of the deeper relations of plants by studying, not only the representatives of the same families in different latitudes, such as the Mimosas and the Milk-weeds, but also what I may call botanical equivalents,—groups which balance each other in the different climatic zones. This idea is suggested to me by my zoölogical studies in the Amazons, which have led me to perceive new relations between the animals of the temperate and the tropical zone: it seems probable that corresponding relations should exist in the vegetable world also. Struck, for instance, by the total absence of sturgeons, perches, pickerels, trouts, carps and other white fishes, cusks, sculpins, &c., I have asked myself, while studying the fishes of the Amazons, what analogy could exist between those of our Western rivers and those of the tropics, as well as between the latter and those of the intermediate latitudes. Looking at them with this view, I have been surprised to find how closely related the Goniodonts are to the Sturgeons; so much so, that the Loricariæ may be considered as genuine Sturgeons, with more extensive shields upon the body. I am satisfied also that the Cychla is a perch to all intents and purposes, that the Acaras are Sunfishes, the Xiphorhamphus (Pirà pucu) Pickerels, and the Curimatas genuine Carps. Now, may not a similar relation exist between the families of plants belonging to the North and those forming the most prominent vegetation of the South? What are the tropical trees which take the place of our elms, maples, lindens? By what families are our oaks, chestnuts, willows, poplars, represented under the burning sun of the equinoctial regions? The Rosaceæ in the temperate and the Myrtaceæ in the tropical regions seem to me such botanical equivalents. The family of Rosaceæ gives to the North its pears, its apples, its peaches, its cherries, its plums, its almonds; in short, all the most delicious fruits of the Old World, as well as its most beautiful flowers. The trees of this family, by their foliage, play a distinguished part in the vegetation of the temperate zone, and impart to it a character of their own. The Myrtaceæ give to the South its guavas, its pitangas, its araçàs, the juicy plum-like fruit of the swamp-myrtles, many of its nuts, and other excellent fruits. This family, including the Melastomaceæ, abounds in flowering shrubs, like the purple Queresma and many others not less beautiful; and some of its representatives, such as the Sapucaia and the Brazilian nut-tree, rise to the height of towering trees. Both of these families sink to insignificance in the one zone, while they assume a dignified port and perform an important part in the other. If this investigation be extended to the shrubs and humbler plants, I believe the botanist who undertakes it will reap a rich harvest.”

The day after to-morrow we leave Pará in the Santa Cruz for Ceará. It will be like leaving a sort of home to say good by to our kind friends in the Rua de Nazareth. We have become attached to this neighborhood also from its beauty. The wide street, bordered for two or three miles with mangueiras, leads into the wooded country, where many a narrow green path in the forest tempts one to long rambles. One of these paths has been a favorite walk of mine on account of the beauty and luxuriance of the vegetation, making some parts of it shady even at noonday. I have often followed it for two or three miles in the early morning, between six and eight o’clock, when the verdant walls on either side are still fresh and dewy. Beautiful as it is, it leads to one of the saddest of all abodes. For a long time I could not understand why this lane was always in such good condition, the heavy rains making unfrequented forest-paths almost impassable in the wet season. I found on inquiry that it led to a hospital for lepers, and was kept in good repair because the various stores and supplies for the hospital were constantly carried over it. The prevalence of leprosy has made it necessary to provide separate establishments for its victims; and both at Pará and Santarem, where it is still more common, there are hospitals devoted exclusively to this purpose. This terrible disease is not confined wholly to the lower classes, and where it occurs in families whose circumstances are good the invalid is often kept at home under the care of his own friends. Bates states that leprosy is supposed to be incurable, and also adds that, during his eleven years’ residence on the Amazons, he has never known a foreigner to be attacked by it. We have, however, been told by a very intelligent German physician in Rio de Janeiro, that he has known several cases of it among his own countrymen there, and has been so fortunate as to effect permanent cures in some instances. He says it is a mistake to suppose that it does not yield to treatment when taken in time, and the statistics of the disease show that, where there are good physicians, it is found to be gradually disappearing.

We must not leave Pará without alluding to our evening concerts from the adjoining woods and swamps. When I first heard this strange confusion of sounds, I thought it came from a crowd of men shouting loudly, though at a little distance. To my surprise, I found that the rioters were the frogs and toads in the neighborhood. I hardly know how to describe this Babel of woodland noises; and if I could do it justice, I am afraid my account would hardly be believed. At moments it seems like the barking of dogs, then like the calling of many voices on different keys, but all loud, rapid, excited, full of emphasis and variety. I think these frogs, like ours, must be silent at certain seasons of the year; for, on our first visit to Pará, we were not struck by this singular music, with which the woods now resound at nightfall.

* * * * *

NOTE.—Before leaving the Amazons, I wish to acknowledge attentions
received from several friends, whose names do not appear in the
narrative.

To Senhor Danin, Chef de Police at Pará, I was indebted for valuable
Indian curiosities, and for specimens of other kinds; to Doctor
Malcher for a collection of birds; to Senhor Penna for important
additions to my collection of fishes; to Senhor Laitaō da Cunha for
aid in collecting, and for many introductions to persons of
influence along our route; and to Mr. Kaulfuss, a German resident at
Pará, for fossils from the Andes.

I have to thank Mr. James Bond, United States Consul at Pará, for
unwearied efforts in my behalf during the whole time of my stay in
the Amazons. He supplied me with alcohol; received the collections
on their arrival at Pará; examined the cases and barrels, causing
those which were defective to be repaired, that they might reach
their destination in safety, and finally despatched them to the
United States, free of charge, on board sailing-vessels in which he
had an interest. We owe it in great degree to him that our immense
Amazonian collections arrived in Cambridge in good condition,
suffering little loss or injury in the process of transportation.—L.
A.

-----

Footnote 88:

During my short stay in the neighborhood of Villa Bella and Obydos I
was indebted to several residents of these towns for assistance in
collecting; especially to Padre Torquato and to Padre Antonio Mattos.
My friend, Mr. Honorio, who accompanied me to this point, with the
assistance of the Delegado, at Villa Bella, made also a very excellent
collection of fishes in this vicinity. At Obydos Colonel Bentos
contributed a very large collection of fishes from the Rio
Trombetas.—L. A.

Footnote 89:

See Chapter XIII., on the Physical History of the Amazons.

Footnote 90:

It is but fitting that I should express here my thanks to Captain
Faria for the courteous manner in which he accomplished the task
assigned him by the government. He was not only a most hospitable host
on board his vessel, but he allowed me to encumber his deck with all
kinds of scientific apparatus, and gave me very efficient assistance
in collecting.—L. A.

Footnote 91:

PARÁ, February 23, 1866.

SIRE:—On arriving at Pará in the beginning of this month, I had the
pleasure to find your Majesty’s kind letter, which had been awaiting
me for several days. I ought to have acknowledged it immediately, but
I was not in a condition to do so, being overcome by fatigue. It is
only during the last two or three days that I begin once more to
occupy myself as usual. I confess that nothing but the presentiment of
regrets which would have pursued me to the end of my days has
prevented me from returning directly to the United States. Even now I
find it difficult to take up the most simple occupations. And yet I am
not ill; I am only exhausted by incessant work, and by the
contemplation, each day more vivid and impressive, of the grandeur and
beauty of this tropical nature. I need to look for a time upon the
sombre and monotonous aspect of a pine forest.

How good you are, Sire, to think of me in the midst of the vital
affairs which absorb your attention, and how considerate are your
acts! The New Year’s present you announce enchants me.[93] The
prospect of being able to add some comparisons of the fishes from the
basin of the Uruguay to such as I have already made between the
Amazonian species and those of the rivers on the eastern coast of
Brazil has a special attraction for me. It will be the first step
towards a knowledge of the types of the temperate zone in South
America. I wait with increasing impatience for the moment when I shall
be able to examine them. In the mean while allow me to give you a
rapid sketch of the results thus far obtained in my voyage on the
Amazons.

I will not return to the surprising variety of species of fishes
contained in this basin, though it is very difficult for me to
familiarize myself with the idea that the Amazons nourishes nearly
twice as many species as the Mediterranean, and a larger number than
the Atlantic, taken from one pole to the other. I can no longer say,
however, with precision, what is the exact number of species which we
have procured from the Amazons, because, on retracing my steps as I
descended the great river, I have seen fishes about to lay their eggs
which I had seen at first under other conditions, and _vice versa_;
and without consulting the collections made six months ago, and which
are not now accessible to me, it is often impossible for me to
determine from memory whether they are the same species, or different
ones which escaped my observation in my first examination. However, I
estimate the total number of species which I actually possess at
eighteen hundred, and it may be two thousand.[94] But it is not only
the number of species which will astonish naturalists; the fact that
they are for the most part circumscribed within definite limits is
still more surprising, and cannot but have a direct influence on the
ideas now prevalent respecting the origin of living beings. That in a
river like the Mississippi, which from the north to the south passes
successively through cold, temperate, and warm zones,—whose waters
flow sometimes over one geological formation, sometimes over another,
and across plains covered at the north by an almost arctic vegetation,
and at the south by a sub-tropical flora,—that in such a basin aquatic
animals of different species should be met at various points of its
course is easily understood by those who are accustomed to consider
general conditions of existence, and of climate especially, as the
first cause of the difference between animals and plants inhabiting
separate localities. But that from Tabatinga to Pará, in a river where
the waters differ neither in temperature nor in the nature of their
bed, nor in the vegetation along their borders,—that under such
circumstances there should be met, from distance to distance,
assemblages of fishes completely distinct from each other, is indeed
astonishing. I would even say that henceforth this distribution, which
may be verified by any one who cares to take the trouble, must throw
much doubt on the opinion which attributes the diversity of living
beings to local influences. Another side of this subject, still more
curious perhaps, is the intensity with which life is manifested in
these waters. All the rivers of Europe united, from the Tagus to the
Volga, do not nourish one hundred and fifty species of fresh-water
fishes; and yet, in a little lake near Manaos, called Lago Hyanuary,
the surface of which covers hardly four or five hundred square yards,
we have discovered more than two hundred distinct species, the greater
part of which have not been observed elsewhere. What a contrast!

The study of the mixture of human races in this region has also
occupied me much, and I have procured numerous photographs of all the
types which I have been able to observe. The principal result at which
I have arrived is, that the _races_ bear themselves towards each other
as do distinct species; that is to say, that the hybrids, which spring
from the crossing of men of different races, are always a mixture of
the two primitive types, and never the simple reproduction of the
characters of one or the other progenitor, as is the case among the
races of domestic animals.

I will say nothing of my other collections, which have been made for
the most part by my young companions, rather with a view to enrich our
Museum than to solve scientific questions. But I cannot allow this
occasion to pass without expressing my lively gratitude for all the
facilities, in my explorations, which I have owed to the kindness of
your Majesty. From the President to the most humble employés of the
provinces I have visited, all have competed with each other to render
my work more easy; and the steamship company of the Amazons has shown
an extreme liberality towards me. Finally, Sire, the generosity with
which you have placed at my disposition a vessel of war has allowed me
to make collections which, with less ample and rapid means of
transport, must have remained utterly inaccessible to me. Permit me to
add, that, of all the favors with which your Majesty has crowned this
voyage, the most precious has been the presence of Major Coutinho,
whose familiarity with all which concerns the Amazons has been an
inexhaustible source of important information and of useful
directions; by means of which the loss of time in unremunerative
excursions has been avoided. His co-operation during this journey has
been most laborious; he has applied himself to zoölogy as if the
physical sciences had not hitherto been the special object of his
study, while at the same time he has made numerous thermometric,
barometric, and astronomical observations, which will furnish
important additions to what is already known concerning the
meteorology and topography of these provinces. We have, for instance,
been the first to carry the barometer into the midst of the hills of
Almeyrim, of Monte Alégre and Ereré, and to measure their highest
summits. The study of the formation of the valley of the Amazons has
naturally occupied me, though in a secondary degree, from the first
day of my arrival.[95]

* * * * *

But it is time that I should close this long letter, begging your Majesty to pardon me for putting your patience to so hard a trial.

Your Majesty’s most humble and most affectionate servant,

L. AGASSIZ.

Footnote 92:

Humboldt’s Personal Narrative, Bohn’s Scientific Library, Vol. II.
Chap. XX. p. 267.

Footnote 93:

The Emperor had written to Mr. Agassiz that, during the time when he
took command of the Brazilian army on the Rio Grande, he had caused
collections of fishes to be made for him from several of the southern
rivers.

Footnote 94:

To-day I cannot give a more precise account of the final result of my
survey. Though all my collections are safely stored in the Museum,
every practical zoölogist understands that a critical examination of
more than eighty thousand specimens cannot be made in less than
several years.—L. A.

Footnote 95:

The rest of this letter is omitted, as its substance is contained in
Chapter XIII., on the Physical History of the Amazons.