The Naturalist on the River Amazons by Henry Walter Bates

An exemplary narrative for armchair explorers

Henry Walter Bates (1825–1892) was an English naturalist. His area of expertise was entomology, the science of insects, but in the 19th century scientists were allowed to be generalists, so he made discoveries in other areas of biology as well. In 1842, Bates embarked on an expedition to explore the Amazon rainforest and gather specimens of the animals and plants that live there. Upon completing an expedition, 19th century naturalist-explorers would compile volumes of scientific texts describing the species they brought back with them. In addition, many would publish a narrative account of their travels intended for a general audience of non-scientists. In Bates’s case, the popular memoir he wrote of his South American journey is The Naturalist on the River Amazons, published in 1863.

This Amazon expedition started out as a joint undertaking with fellow British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace, who is now better-known than Bates for having formulated the theory of evolution about the same time as Charles Darwin. Once in Brazil, Wallace and Bates seem to have often split up and conducted their own research, and Wallace returned to England several years before Bates. It’s hard to tell how much time the two spent together. Bates only mentions “Mr. Wallace” a few times in this memoir. That’s not unusual for scientific memoirs of this period, however. There seems to have been a gentleman’s agreement that each explorer would talk about himself and leave his traveling companions to write their own books. Wallace published his account, A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, in 1889.

Bates’s mode of operation was to travel up the Amazon to a certain city, acquire a house on the outskirts of town, and live there for a few years. From these home bases, he would make hiking or boat trips deeper into the wilderness to explore and gather specimens. In this memoir, Bates’s explorations center around three main locations: Pará, near the Amazon delta (today there is a state named Pará, but the city is named Belém); Santarém, several hundred miles further up the river; and Ega (now called Tefé), a small village on the upper Amazon near the Peruvian border. The Amazon region was already somewhat “civilized” by this time. Bates interacted mostly with Whites (Portuguese) and Mamelucos (people of mixed Portuguese and Indigenous heritage, the Brazilian equivalent of Mexico’s Mestizos), but he did encounter some Native tribes living a relatively untouched existence, as well as Blacks of African descent, both slaves and free. Despite the extent of Portuguese colonization, very few European scientists had explored the Amazon by this time, so new, undescribed species were ripe for the picking. In the book’s introduction, Darwin states that Bates collected specimens of 14,712 species, about 14,000 of them being insects, and about 8000 of those species (not just insects) being previously “unknown to science.”

The problem with a lot of exploration narratives of this era is that despite attempts at accessibility for a popular audience, they end up being too academically scientific. Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), though still widely read and highly regarded, is a difficult read for the non-scientist, as is Alexander von Humboldt’s Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America (1814). Bates, however, really strikes the perfect balance between travel memoir and scientific text. He really armchair travelers a vivid impression of what the Amazon region was like in these frontier days, but if you’re interested in biology, there’s also plenty of good stuff in here about the bugs, birds, monkeys, reptiles, and plants of Brazil. You also learn a great deal about the people of Brazil—communities of all different races and levels of economic and cultural development. While Bates was certainly not the anti-colonial liberal that Alexander von Humboldt was, he does not display a great deal of expected Victorian-era racism in this memoir. He does have a tendency, however, to judge people by their level of “civilization” and view those living further in the bush as dumb hicks, regardless of race. All in all, the strengths of Bates’s writing add up to an exemplary exploration narrative. For those who envy the lives of these pioneering naturalists—traveling to exotic lands, studying the natural environment, and discovering “new” species—Bates’s book is a dream come to life.

Brazilian Tales, edited by Isaac Goldberg

Foundations of a national literature

Machado de Assis

As one might expect, Brazilian Tales, published in 1921, is a collection of short stories by Brazilian writers. The volume was edited by Isaac Goldberg, a literary jack-of-all-trades who translated works from French, Italian, German, Yiddish, Spanish, and in this case, Portuguese. Goldberg also wrote over 30 volumes of the Little Blue Books series in diverse areas such as biography, music, freethought, and world literature, including The Spirit of Brazilian Literature and Brazilian Short Stories. In addition to the six short stories collected in this volume, Goldberg also supplies a brief but educational introduction to the history of Brazilian letters. He explains that Brazilian literature began as an extension of Portuguese literature and often tried to emulate European culture. By the end of the 19th century, however, Brazil had developed its own national literature, unique to Brazilian culture and society, that deserved to be recognized worldwide.

If Brazilians were asked to choose their nation’s greatest author, the consensus would likely be Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis. According to Goldberg,“When the Brazilian Academy of Letters was founded in 1897, Machado de Assis was unanimously elected president and held the position until his death.” Half of the six selections Goldberg includes in this volume are authored by Machado de Assis. The first two entries, “The Attendant’s Confession” and “The Fortune-Teller,” are both suspenseful tales somewhat reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe. Though murder figures into both plots, however, they are more about morality than the macabre. The third selection, “Life,” is a horse of a different color. This piece is a dialogue between the legendary “Wandering Jew” Ahasverus and the Greek god Prometheus. Nineteenth century writers loved to invoke classical mythology for such philosophical exercises, but “Life” is unlikely to hold much appeal for twenty-first century readers.

Of the remaining selections, “The Vengeance of Felix” by José Medeiros e Albuquerque is the least satisfying. This tale of revenge concludes with an intended “surprise twist” ending, but the reader sees it coming a mile away. The last two entries are of higher literary merit. Coelho Netto’s “The Pigeons,” uses a native superstition to heighten the poignancy of a family tragedy in an Indigenous household. In “Aunt Zeze’s Tears,” the title character is a proverbial “old maid,” but still young enough to hold out hope for finding love. Author Carmen Dolores delivers a nuanced and psychologically insightful character study that results in a quite moving narrative.

This book is only about 150 pages long, and the word count on each page is pretty low. It seems that brevity was a major consideration in Goldberg’s selection criteria, and this is the book’s major fault. These stories, each of which is only 10 to 20 pages long, are over before they ever really go anywhere. Most are just character sketches followed by an abrupt ending. Nevertheless, the quality of the writing is quite good all around. Reading these brief scenes makes one wonder what these talented authors could do with an entire novel. To that end, Goldberg does suggest some novels in his introduction. Later in the 20th century, Latin-American literature gained in popularity, and Brazilian writers like Jorge Amado, Clarice Lispector, and Paolo Coelho achieved renown. Back in 1924, however, Goldberg was one of the first critics to draw attention to the literature of Brazil. His Brazilian Tales provides an informative and enticing introduction to that country’s literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Stories in this collection

The Attendant’s Confession by Jaoquim Maria Machado de Assis

The Fortune-Teller by Jaoquim Maria Machado de Assis

Life by Jaoquim Maria Machado de Assis

The Vengeance of Felix by José Medeiros e Albuquerque 

The Pigeons by Coelho Netto 

Aunt Zeze’s Tears by Carmen Dolores

If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.
https://www.amazon.com/review/R3454IEDCNO55H/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm