My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

IN THE AMAZON VALLEY 149" My canoe is now getting ready for a furtherRio Negro injourney up to near the sources of theVenezuela, where I have reason to believe I shallfind insects more plentiful, and at least as many birdsas here. On my return from there I shall take avoyage up the great River Uaupes, and another upthe Isanna, not so much for my collections, which Ido not expect to be very profitable there, but becauseI am so much interested in the country and thepeople that I am determined to see and know moreof it and them than any other European traveller.If I do not get profit, I hope at least to get somecredit as an industrious and persevering traveller."Looking back over my four years' wanderings inthe Amazon valley, there seem to me to be threegreat features which especially impressed me, andwhich fully equalled or even surpassed my expectationsof them. The first was the virgin forest, everywheregrand, often beautiful and even sublime. Itswonderful variety with a more general uniformity neverpalled. Standing under one of its great buttressedtrees—itself a marvel of nature—and looking carefullyaround, noting the various columnar trunksrising like lofty pillars, one soon perceives that hardlytwo of these are alike. The shape of the trunks,their colour and texture, the nature of their bark,their mode of branching and the character of thefoliage far overhead, or of the fruits or flowers lyingon the ground, have an individuality which shows thatthey are all distinct species differing from one anotheras our oak, elm, beech, ash, lime, and sycamore differ.This extraordinary variety of the species is a generalthough not universal characteristic of tropical forests,but seems to be nowhere so marked a feature as inthe great forest regions which encircle the globe for