us, mere strangers of an alien race! In every detail they were original
and self-sustaining as are the wild animals of the forest, absolutely
independent of civilisation.... I could not have believed that there
would have been so much difference in the aspect of the same people in
their native state and when living under European supervision. The true
denizen of the Amazonian forest, like the forest itself, is unique and
not to be forgotten."

The foregoing "impressions" recall forcibly those expressed by Darwin in
similar terms at the close of his "Journal": "Delight ... is a weak term
to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has
wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest. The elegance of the grasses,
the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers, the
glossy green of the foliage ... the general luxuriance of the
vegetation, filled me with admiration. A paradoxical mixture of sound
and silence pervades the shady parts of the wood ... yet within the
recesses ... a universal silence appears to reign ... such a day as this
brings with it a deeper pleasure than he (a naturalist) can ever hope to
experience again,"[8] And in another place: "Among the scenes which are
deeply impressed on my mind, none can exceed in sublimity the primeval
forests undefaced by the hand of man; ... temples filled with the
various productions of the God of Nature; ... no one can stand in these
solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere
breath of his body."[9]

In complete contrast to the forest, the bare, treeless, and uninhabited
plains of Patagonia "frequently crossed before" Darwin's eyes. Why, he
could not understand, except that, being so "boundless," they left "free
scope for the imagination."