Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, 1851-1852

BOOK REVIEW: Five-Stars

Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, 1851-1852 by William Lewis Herndon

The author of this book was a naval officer from the State of Virginia with expansionist and slavery inclinations: a reflection of the times, 1851. I found the book an excellent look into the explorer mentality of Americanism, eminent domain, and manifest destiny. Unbounded exploitation of indigenous jungle would reach its finite limits before the year 2020. As early as 1800 Humboldt warned the world of these consequences, that would go unheeded. It is now too late.

Excerpts:

In 1850 the Secretary of the Navy had appointed Herndon to lead the first American expedition into the mysterious and foreboding territory known as the Valley of the Amazon. Arriving in Lima on the sixth of February. This city has changed greatly since I was here twenty years ago. Though we had bullfights on the accession of the new president, yet the noble amphitheater was not crowded as in old times with the alite and fashion of Lima, but seemed abandoned to the vulgar. The ladies have given up their peculiar and most graceful national costume, the Saya y Manto, and it is now the mark of a ragged reputation. They dress in the French style, frequent the opera, and, instead of the Yerba de Paraguay, called matte, of which they used a great quantity formerly, they now take tea. These are causes for regret, for one likes to see nationality preserved; but there is one cause for congratulation (especially on the part of sea-going men, who have sometimes suffered), the railroad between Lima and Callao has broken up the robbers.

The Valley of the Amazon as one of the most enchanting regions on the face of the earth. From its mountains you may dig silver, iron, coal, copper, quicksilver, zinc, and tin; from the sands of its tributaries you may wash gold, diamonds, and precious stones; from its forests you may gather drugs of virtues the most rare, spices of aroma the most exquisite, gums and resins of the most varied and useful properties, dyes of hues the most brilliant, with cabinet and building-woods of the finest polish and most enduring texture. Its climate is an everlasting summer, and its harvest perennial.