Notes of a naturalist in South America

by John Ball

M. GEORGES CLARAZ.

With slight variation, this comparatively cool current must have extended over a large area on both sides of the equator, as the temperature of the water remained nearly the same for about forty-eight hours.

Throughout the voyage from Brazil to Europe, I was fortunate in enjoying the society of a man of remarkable intelligence, who has been a diligent and accurate observer of nature in a region still imperfectly known. M. Georges Claraz, by birth a Swiss, belonging to a family of small proprietors in the Canton of Fribourg, had gone out as a young man to improve his fortune in South America. He had received a fair scientific education, having followed the lectures of the eminent men who have adorned the Polytechnic School at Zurich; but, what is much more rare, he appeared to have retained everything that he had ever learned, and to have had a clear perception of the scientific value of the observations that a stranger may make in a little-known region. After passing some time in the state of Entrerios, he had settled at Bahia Blanca, close to the northern border of Patagonia. He had established friendly relations with the Indians, and made frequent excursions in the interior of Patagonia and southward as far as, and even beyond, the river Chubat.

During the entire time, although engaged in the work of a settler, M. Claraz seems to have made careful notes of his observations—on the native Indians and their customs; on the indigenous and the domestic animals; on the plants and their uses; on the mineral structure of the country, not omitting to take specimens of the mud brought down by the different rivers; and on general physics. Of his large collections I trust that the greater part have safely reached Switzerland. A considerable collection of dried plants, sent home while he resided at Bahia Blanca, was unfortunately lost. He was good enough, after his return, to send me a smaller collection remaining in his hands, of which I gave an account in the Journal of the Linnæan Society for 1884.

As I trust that the great store of information collected by M. Claraz will before long be given to the world, I should not wish to anticipate the appearance of his work, but I may say that among many interesting particulars, several of which I noted at the time, I was especially struck by the evidence collected among the Indians, which seemed to prove that the Glyptodon survived in Patagonia down to a comparatively recent period, and that the tradition of its presence is preserved in the stories and songs of the natives.

Early on July 31 we passed the equator, but it was not till ten p.m. on the following day that we escaped from the area of cool water and found the ordinary equatorial temperature of 82·5°. During the three following days the weather was hot and relaxing, the thermometer ranging by day between 84° and 85°. For some hours on the 2nd of August the wind came from south-south-east, but before evening it backed to west, and blew from that point rather freshly at night. On the following day we appeared to have met the north-east trade-wind, which was, however, a gentle breeze, and occasionally veered to the north-west.

ISLAND OF ST. VINCENT.

In the afternoon of August 4 we made out the picturesque outline of the Cape Verde Islands, and before sunset entered the channel between St. Vincent and St. Antão, finally dropping anchor for the night in the outer part of the fine harbour of St. Vincent. Having been selected as a coaling station, this has become the chief resort of steamers plying between Europe and the Southern Atlantic, and we were led to expect that the operation would take up great part of the following day. Here a fresh disappointment awaited me. I had confidently reckoned upon spending several hours ashore, and seeing something of the curious vegetation of the island, which includes a scanty representation of tropical African types, with several forms allied to the characteristic plants of the Canary Islands.

I had not duly taken account of the perverse temper of the officers of health, whose chief object in life seems everywhere to be to make their authority felt by the needless annoyance they cause to unoffending fellow-creatures. We had left Rio with a clean bill of health; not a single case of yellow fever had occurred for months before our departure; but Brazil is regarded as permanently “suspected,” and quarantine regulations were strictly enforced in our case.