WCP406

[1]

Pará,¹

June 16th 1848

Dear George

You will see by the above that I have delayed answering your letter rec[eive]^d. in London, till I could give you satisfactory proof of my having reached my destination safe & sound. —

The perils of the deep were less than I expected. I was sick for the first 10 days more or less & unwell from want of exercise the rest of the time, but after we got out of the Channel we had beautiful weather & made the passage in 31 days which was less than we anticipated — We sailed from Liverpool on the evening of April 26 & arrived at Pará early on the morning of May 28th. Since then we have been [2] staying at the House of the consignee of the vessel Mr Miller² the captains brother — for the last fortnight we have been at his Country House or Rosinha [Rocinha] ab[ou]^t. half a mile out of the city.

We have now just taken a house ourselves rather nearer the woods and tomorrow expect to be in it. We have an old nigger here who cooks &c. for us, & have been practising housekeeping for a fortnight. — Now for a little description of the place — The city is a curious outlandish looking place the best part of it very like Boulogne. The streets narrow & horribly rough. No pavement — The public buildings handsome but ruinous & out of repair. The squares & public places grass & weeds like an English Common. Palms[,] trees of many different kinds & Bananas & plantains abundant in [3] all the gardens. Oranges innumerable[,] most of the Roads out of the city having rows of orange trees on each side of them — Bananas & oranges are delicious. I eat them at almost every meal — Beef is the only meat to be constantly had — not good but cheap 2 ¾^d per lb. Coffee grows wild all about the city — yet it is imported for use, the people are so lazy — Every shade of colour is seen here in the people from white to yellow[,] brown & black — negroes[,] Indians, Brazilian & Europeans & every intermediate mixture. The Brazilians & Portuguese are very polite & have all the appearance of civilized beings — naked nigger children abound in the streets.

Within a mile of the city all round is the forest extending uninterruptedly many hundreds [4] and even thousands of miles into the interior — The climate is beautiful. We are now at the commencement of the dry season — It rains generally for an hour or two every evening though not always — Before sunrise the thermometer is ab[ou]^t. 75^o. in the afternoon 85^o to 87^o the highest I have yet seen it — This is hot but by no means oppressive — I enjoy it as much as the finest summer weather in England — We have been principally collecting Insects at present — The variety is immense we have already got about 400 distinct kinds — When we get to our house more in the country we shall collect plants & other things —

This letter will go to England by the ship I came in & as I have many more letters to write I must now remain

Yours sincerely | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

PS. when a parcel is coming I will let you know as postage is very expensive here.