South America Books

—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.We spent part of an afternoon and a night at sea, and reached Bluff, in New Zealand, early in the morning. Bluff is at the bottom of the middle island, and is away down south, nearly forty-seven degrees below the equator. It lies as far south of the line as Quebec lies north of it, and the climates of the two should be alike; but for some reason or other it... more...

Chapter I Crossing the Desert A kind friend in Bolivia once placed in my hands a copy of a most interesting book by the late E. George Squier, entitled “Peru. Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas.” In that volume is a marvelous picture of the Apurimac Valley. In the foreground is a delicate suspension bridge which commences at a tunnel in the face of a precipitous cliff and hangs in... more...

PREFACE. This volume is one result of a scientific expedition to the equatorial Andes and the river Amazon. The expedition was made under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, and consisted of the following gentlemen besides the writer: Colonel Staunton, of Ingham University, Leroy, N.Y.; F.S. Williams, Esq., of Albany, N.Y.; and Messrs. P.V. Myers and A. Bushnell, of Williams College. We sailed... more...

CHAPTER I. Embarkation at Havre—​The Voyage—​Arrival at the Island of Chiloe—​Landing—​The Gyr-Falcon—​Punta Arena—​The Island of Chiloe described—​Climate and Cultivation—​Cattle—​The Bay—​San Carlos—​The... more...

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.Suppose we applied no more ingenuity to the instruction of deaf and dumb and blind children than we sometimes apply in our American public schools to the instruction of children who are in possession of all their faculties? The result would be that the deaf and dumb and... more...

It is your human environment that makes climate.—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.Sept. 15—Night. Close to Australia now. Sydney 50 miles distant. That note recalls an experience. The passengers were sent for, to come up in the bow and see a fine sight. It was very dark. One could not follow with the eye the surface of the sea more than fifty yards in any direction it dimmed away and... more...