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

i64MY LIFEable to begin the work which I had determined to dobefore again leaving England.In the small tin box which I had saved from thewreck I fortunately had a set of careful pencil drawingsof all the different species of palms I had metwith, together with notes as to their distribution anduses. I had also a large number of drawings of fish,as already stated, carefully made toscale, with notesof their colours, their dentition, and their fin-rays,scales, etc. I had also a folio Portuguese note-bookcontaining my diary while on the Rio Negro, andsome notes and observations made for a map of thatriver and the Uaupes. With these scanty materials,helped by the letters I had sent home, I now set towork to write an account of my travels, as well as afew scientific papers for which I had materials in theportion of my collections made in Para, Santarem,and the Lower Rio Negro. These I had sent offbefore leaving Barra on my first voyage up the RioNegro, and they had arrived home safely ; but I hadreserved all my private collections for comparisonwith future discoveries, and though I left these to besent home before starting on my second voyage upthe Rio Negro, they were never despatched, owing tothe Custom House authorities at Barra insisting onseeing the contents before allowing them to go away.I therefore found them at Barra on my way home,and they were all lost with the ship.As my collections had now made my name wellknown to the authorities of the Zoological and EntomologicalSocieties, I received a ticket from theformer, giving me admission to their gardens while Iremained in England, and I was a welcome visitorat the scientific meetings of both societies, whichI attended very regularly, and thus made the