Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/435

 a green fringe to the path: it will then become as beautiful a woodland road as the old one was. A naturalist will have, henceforward, to go farther from the city to find the glorious forest scenery which lay so near in 1848, and work much more laboriously than was formerly needed, to make the large collections which Mr. Wallace and I succeeded in doing in the neighbourhood of Pará.

June 2, 1859.—At length, on the second of June, I left Pará, probably for ever; embarking in a North American trading-vessel, the "Frederick Demming," for New York, the United States' route being the quickest as well as the pleasantest way of reaching England. My extensive private collections were divided into three portions and sent by three separate ships, to lessen the risk of loss of the whole. On the evening of the third of June, I took a last view of the glorious forest for which I had so much love, and to explore which I had devoted so many years. The saddest hours I ever recollect to have spent were those of the succeeding night when, the mameluco pilot having left us free of the shoals and out of sight of land though within the mouth of the river at anchor waiting for the wind, I felt that the last link which connected me with the land of so many pleasing recollections was broken. The Paraenses, who are fully aware of the attractiveness of their country, have an alliterative proverb, "Queni vai para (o) Pará para," "He who goes to Pará stops there," and I had often thought I should myself have been added to the list of examples.