[1846 Autograph Letter Signed by William H. Edwards, Famed Naturalist and South American Travel Writer].

“Here I am, safely ensconced in this el dorado…”

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Four full pages from American entomologist William Henry Edwards (1822-1909) written upon just arriving in Pará, Brazil in 1846.

In 1847, John Murray of London would publish Edwards’ A Voyage up the River Amazon including a residence at Pará which gave an account of the exotic plants, birds, and animals there. Edwards was a renowned and distinguished naturalist and ardent lepidopterist, among the first to systematically describe the preparatory stages of American (as well as European) butterflies. He is famed for his three volume illustrated magnum opus The Butterflies of North America (1874, 1884, and 1897).

Edwards’ book on his experiences at Pará inspired the English naturalists Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates to explore the Amazon. According to ANB, “[e]volutionary theorists were deeply interested in Edwards’s discoveries in polymorphism. Bates and Wallace, who had shown how the selection of mimetic and polymorphic forms among tropical butterflies eventually produced new species, suggested how Edwards’s inquiries into polymorphism could further this line of investigation.”

In this letter, Edwards describes to his correspondent, a Mr. Bidwell of Brooklyn, his 1846 voyage from New York to Brazil, and his impressions upon arriving in South America and of the “natural beauty” of the place:

Here I am, safely ensconced in this el dorado… We arrived off the coast in eighteen days; a very short passage. ... After entering the [Amazon] river, our sail up was all enchantment, and at every succession since[?] we were all ready to pitch the States to the dogs, and swing our hammocks for good and [indistinct] under the shade of a big plantation. ... I am most decidedly of the mind that if Adam found his Eden a more exquisitely lovely (lovely is the word) spot than the vicinity of Para. ... The Amazon as you are aware is then of immense width and the whole width and length is studded with myriads of islands, separated by quiet streams that wind about… These islands are all level and profusely covered by vegetation down to the very edge of the water and gloriously enammelled [sic] with flowers of every hue and form. ... You walk into the forest and the first thing you observe is the intense stillness. Not a bird, not an insect. Plenty of both there are, and of animals too, but from the lofty[?] tree tops. ... From the roof of this [forest] hang cord-like tendrils of every size…and up these monkey ladders, as people term them, the monkeys ascend and descend as the spirit moves. Air plants, bearing large and gaudy flowers, surround the tree trunks, in such numbers and variety that we have counted ten varieties on one tree. Thousands of humming birds and butterflies here find their nectar goblets…

Edwards writes romantically, regretting that “time and paper” will not allow him to give “a long list of curious trees and shrubs.” He further writes of his “...large collection of birds and nearly a thousand shells.” He reports that he has seen “...scarce any snakes, few mosquitos, [and] no jiggers…”

ANB summarizes Edwards’ importance as an entomologist specializing in butterflies: “In taxonomy, Edwards was a “lumper” of species, whereas his lepidopterist friend and rival, Samuel H. Scudder, was a ‘splitter.’ Edwards was an early defender of Darwinian principles in taxonomy, whereas Scudder was a later convert to evolution. ... Edwards, however, through his masterly command of a continental network of entomological assistants, achieved preeminence in the clarification of polymorphic forms of butterflies, their life histories, preparatory stages, geographic varieties and ranges, and in their superb illustration.”

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