Text Online
From:
John Wallace
To:
Mary Ann Wallace (née Greenell)
Date:
16 July 1849
Source of text:
Wallace Family Collection (private collection)
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Showing 1–2 of 2 items
No summary available.
Tells mother preparing for voyage to Rio Negro. We are first English to climb Monte Alegre. Explored remote cave, copied “curious writings on the rocks” inside. Indians dug up “water tortoise eggs” on river bank, which, with milk and farinha “made a very excellent meal.” Fired on “several immense alligators” in river. Have eaten alligator tail, parrot, and turtle. Met English botanist Richard Spruce here. Includes “enigma” riddle and a poem about “naked little children/with skins of every dye/Some black, some brown, some lighter/some white as you or I...a dozen such in family...Tis common in Brazil.