The early part of 1848 was occupied in making arrangements with Mr. Samuel Stevens, of King Street, Covent Garden, to act as their agent in disposing of a duplicate collection of specimens which they proposed sending home; by this means paying their expenses during the time they were away, any surplus being invested against their return.  This and other matters being satisfactorily settled, they eventually sailed from Liverpool on April 20th in a barque of 192 tons, said to be “a very fast sailer,” which proved to be correct.  On arriving at Para about a month later, they immediately set about finding a house, learning something of the language, the habits of the people amongst whom they had come to live, and making short excursions into the forest before starting on longer and more trying explorations up country.

Wallace’s previous vivid imaginings of what life in the tropics would mean, so far as the surpassing beauty of nature was concerned, were not immediately fulfilled.  As a starting-point, however, Para had many advantages.  Besides the pleasant climate, the country for some hundreds of miles was found to be nearly level at an elevation of about 30 or 40 ft. above the river; the first distinct rise occurring some 150 miles up the river Tocantins, south-west of Para; the whole district was intersected by streams, with cross channels connecting them, access by this means being comparatively easy to villages and estates lying farther inland.

Before making an extensive excursion into the interior, he spent some time on the larger islands at the mouth of the Amazon, on one of which he immediately noticed the scarcity of trees, while “the abundance of every kind of animal life crowded into a small space was here very striking, compared with the sparse manner in which it is scattered in the virgin forests.  It seems to force us to the conclusion that the luxuriance of tropical vegetation is not favourable to the production of animal life.  The plains are always more thickly peopled than the forest; and a temperate zone, as has been pointed out by Mr. Darwin, seems better adapted to the support of large land animals than the tropics.”

We have already referred to the fact that at the very early age of 14 Wallace had imbibed his first ideas of Socialism, or how the “commonwealth” of a people or nation was the outcome of cause and effect, largely due to the form of government, political economy and progressive commerce best suited to any individual State or country.  The seed took deep root, and during the years spent for the most part amongst an agricultural people in England and Wales his interest in these questions had been quickened by observation and intelligent inquiry.  It is no wonder, therefore, that during the whole of his travels we find many intimate references to such matters regarding the locality in which he happened to find himself, but which can only be noticed in a very casual manner in this section.  For instance, he soon