In the course of his travels, Louis Agassiz came to America. At that time he could not speak English very well, but all his stories were so charming that the halls were never large enough to hold the men and women who wanted to hear him.
Louis Agassiz loved America so well that he made up his mind to spend the rest of his life here. As time passed, he decided, also, to give this country the benefit of all that he discovered. He was so bright that the whole world was beginning to wonder at him. France got jealous of America's keeping such a great man. So Napoleon offered him a high office and great honors; but Louis said "No," adding courageously: "I'd rather have the gratitude of a free people than the patronage of Emperors!"
The city of Zurich begged him to return.
"No," he wrote, "I cannot. I love America too well!"
Then the city of Paris urged him to be at the head of their Natural History Museum, but this was no use, either. Nothing could win Louis Agassiz away from America.
At Harvard College Agassiz was made professor of natural history, and there is to-day at Cambridge a museum of zoology, the largest of its kind in the world, which Agassiz founded and built. At his home in Cambridge the professor still kept strange pets, quite as he used to do when a boy. Visitors to his garden never knew when they might step on a live turtle, or when they might come suddenly upon an alligator, an eagle, or a timid rabbit.
The precious dream of going to Brazil came true when Louis Agassiz was fifty years old. With a party of seventeen and his wife, he went on an exploring expedition to South America. It was a great adventure.
Agassiz had been to many cold countries and had slept on glaciers night after night, with only a single blanket under him, but never in his life had he been in the tropics.
When Agassiz arrived in South America, Don Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, was glad to see the man who was known as a famous scientist and heaped all kinds of honors upon him. Better than all, he helped Agassiz get into many out-of-the-way places.
If you want to know about a fish that has four eyes, about dragon-flies that are flaming crimson and green, and floating islands that are as large as a school playground, yet go sailing along like a ship, bearing birds, deer, and wild looking jaguars, read: A Journey to Brazil by Professor and Mrs. Agassiz.