region partly of healthy, rather dry and sandy, open prairie, partly
of forest. The great and low-lying basin of the Paraguay, which
borders it on the south, is one of the largest, and the still greater
basin of the Amazon, which borders it on the north, is the very
largest of all the river basins of the earth.

In these basins, but especially in the basin of the Amazon, and thence
in most places northward to the Caribbean Sea, lie the most extensive
stretches of tropical forest to be found anywhere. The forests of
tropical West Africa, and of portions of the Farther-Indian region,
are the only ones that can be compared with them. Much difficulty has
been experienced in exploring these forests, because under the
torrential rains and steaming heat the rank growth of vegetation
becomes almost impenetrable, and the streams difficult of navigation;
while white men suffer much from the terrible insect scourges and the
deadly diseases which modern science has discovered to be due very
largely to insect bites. The fauna and flora, however, are of great
interest. The American Museum was particularly anxious to obtain
collections from the divide between the headwaters of the Paraguay and
the Amazon, and from the southern affluents of the Amazon. Our purpose
was to ascend the Paraguay as nearly as possible to the head of
navigation, thence cross to the sources of one of the affluents of the
Amazon, and if possible descend it in canoes built on the spot. The
Paraguay is regularly navigated as high as boats can go. The starting-
point for our trip was to be Asuncion, in the state of Paraguay.

My exact plan of operations was necessarily a little indefinite, but
on reaching Rio de Janeiro the minister of foreign affairs, Mr. Lauro
Muller, who had been kind enough to take great personal interest in my
trip, informed me that he had arranged that on the headwaters of the