ness, will be a village to Pará and Pará will be what New Orleans would long ago have been but for the activity of New York, and her own fatal climate, the greatest city of the New World; Santarem will be St. Louis, and Barra”the present Manaos-"Cincinnati." 1

The French astronomer Flammarion, in his weird romance Omega: The Last Days of the World-makes his hero and heroine-the last human pair on earth-expire at the foot of the pyramid of Cheops, the most enduring monument of our race. If I should venture an opinion on such a problematic matter, I should be disposed to assert that the extinction of human kind is more likely to occur somewhere in the great Amazon valley, for it, in all human probability, will be the last place on earth to feel the touch of eternal frost, which, sooner or later, will hold in its frigid grip all the planets and suns of the fathomless universe.

1 Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, p. 367, Washington, 1854.

CHAPTER XXV

HOMEWARD BOUND

After leaving Pará, my Wanderjahr in the wake and in the footsteps of the conquistadores was practically at an end. Thence onward, until my arrival in New York, there was little to be seen except sea and sky. I was, of course, interested in the great island of Marajó-larger than Sicily and with a greater area than Massachusetts-which lies between the estuaries of the Amazon and the Tocantins. It is true that the greater part of the immense Amazonian flood enters the ocean on the northern side of the island, but enough of it passes through the southern channel, sometimes called the Rio Pará, to justify one in regarding Marajó as located entirely in the embouchure of the Amazon. That the great river should hold in its embrace an island of this magnitude, not to speak of others to the north, gives one a vivid conception of its immensity. Its mouth is eighty miles in width, and so great is the volume of water poured into the ocean that the yellow water of the Amazon can be distinguished from the blue wave of the Atlantic at a distance of more than fifty miles. But, unlike the Orinoco, the Nile, the Ganges and the Mississippi, the Amazon, strange to say, has no delta. Its immense volume of water, three times that of the Mississippi, rolls through the broad channels-Mar Dulce, sweet-water sea-to the north and the south of Marajó, encountering at virtually a single point the opposing will of the broad Mar Oceano.

We left the Amazon and the equator at almost the same moment, for the northern part of the equinoctial line and the northern shore of the great river's mouth almost coincide.

My last view of South America was synchronous with the appearance on our port quarter of a magnificent double rainbow. This was the third time during my journey across the continent that I had been favored by what my Peruvian companions always insisted was a good omen for the traveler. The first time was when I was leaving the Pacific; the second after I had crossed the Cordilleras, and was started on my way down the Paranapura. If the view of my Andean friends was correct, a double rainbow should betoken more of good and success than a single one. I loved to think so at the time, and the happy termination of my wanderings a fortnight later more than realized my fondest hopes.

As the hazy coast line of Amazonia receded from view and I realized that I was leaving behind me the beauteous continent of the Southern Cross, I experienced a sense of longing I had never known before. Longing, however, does not wholly express the feeling that then took possession of me, for it was more than longing. It was what the Portuguese call saudade, what the Germans denominate Sehnsucht, words that have no equivalent in English, and which signify not only intense yearning and regret, but also sweet remembrance. I regretted leaving South America, where I had spent such a delightful, such an instructive year, and would fain have returned, if duty had not beckoned me homeward. The Wanderlust, which was strong when I left New York nearly a twelvemonth before, far from being abated, was stronger and more insistent than ever.

I recalled with pleasure the happy months I had spent while contemplating the wonders of the mountains and rivers and forests of our sister continent and enjoying the bounteous hospitality of its charming and generous people, and began forthwith to make preparations for a more extended journey in a land that possessed so many and so varied attractions. I had seen much, but much more remained for another visit.

And best of all-and I wish to emphasize specially this

feature of my wanderings-the journey, long as it was, was devoid of every untoward incident. There was never any delay but once, and that was because the steamer on which we had engaged passage had to be docked for repairs. But this vessel belonged to an European and not to a South American company. There was never any danger even in the wildest and most untraveled parts of the country, and only once did I regret that I was not provided with firearms. That was on the Meta, when I saw cloud-like flocks of wild ducks flying over our heads, and had no means of securing a few of them for a change of diet. The people everywhere, whites, mestizos, Indians, were always kind and considerate, and only twice had I reason to complain of a lack of courtesy and fair treatment, and that was at the hands of two supercilious Europeans-agents of two foreign corporations-men who seemed to fancy they were furthering the interests of their companies by resorting to sharp practices which they would never dare attempt where condign punishment would immediately follow.

When, before leaving New York, I announced my itinerary to some friends, whose travels in South America had been confined to the places reached by steamers and railroads, they endeavored to dissuade me from what they pronounced a rash and dangerous undertaking. They warned me particularly against certain parts of South America where, they assured me, was rampant

"What ever hideous thinge the earth his enemy

Begets, or what soever sea or ayre hath brought to syght Both dreadful, dire and pestilent, of cruel, fiercest might."'1

But heedless of the warnings given me, I went to the regions that were pronounced so beset with danger. And, while grateful to my friends for their kindly interest in me, I shall ever feel that I should have missed the most interesting and the most enjoyable part of the tropics if I had hearkened to their monitions. I found none of the

1 Seneca, Hercules Furens, Act I, v. 30-32.

which they imagined would confront me at every turn, and experienced none of the hardships which, they declared, were inevitable.

More than this, I left New York an invalid, and presumably requiring the conveniences and comforts of home. But no sooner did I begin to rough it in the wilds of the equatorial regions than health and strength returned apace, and it was not long before every vestige of illness had entirely disappeared.

And nowhere did I suffer any inconvenience from change of climate or food. Only once was I incommoded by the heat, and that was when I was trying to take a siesta in my stateroom while on the Huallaga; and only once did I suffer from the cold. This was at the foot of Chimborazo, where our train ran off the track, and where we had to spend a chilly night in a windowless car, with no means of heating it. Although I frequently spent many days in succession on horse or mule back in a continual downpour, I never got wet, and never felt any ill-effects from exposure. Of course, I always took whatever precautions prudence dictated, and followed, as I should have done in my own country, the ordinary rules of hygiene in eating and drinking. Where I could not find a clean bed in the humble homes of the natives, I always had recourse to my cot and blankets. Where the huts or tambos were small or crowded, I always used my tent, and in this, whether on the summit of the Andes or in the forests of the montaña, I slept as soundly as I ever did in the downiest couch.

As to food, I found no difficulty in satisfying the cravings of hunger with the simple fare prepared for me by the natives. So far, indeed, was this from being the case, that I soon came to enjoy it. No one could have broiled a chicken