On the Banks of the Amazon   By: William Henry Giles Kingston (1814-1880)

This is a quite long book, very well written, about a trip down the Amazon. There is rather a lot of "Natural History", but not too much, because it has all been made easy to follow, and is very interesting. All sorts of interesting things happen on this voyage.

The copy used for digitisation had a rather furry and small typeface. Not one of the clearest we have ever seen. Consequently it was rather heavy labour trying to iron out the misreads and typos, and it may well be that some remain, though nowhere near the prescribed limit of 99.95%.

There are 132,948 words in the book, so 1 in 2000 means that we must have less than 66 errors still remaining, which I am sure is the case.

It is a rather curious thing that one is reminded at times of Ballantyne's "Martin Rattler," written very much earlier, even down to to the presence of a "recluse". That doesn't mean you won't enjoy the book just as much as you might have enjoyed "Martin Rattler." Best, as always, as an audiobook.

ON THE BANKS OF THE AMAZON, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON.

CHAPTER ONE.

MY SCHOOL BOY DAYS AND FRIENDS.

I might find an excuse for being proud, if I were so, not because my ancestors were of exalted rank or title, or celebrated for noble deeds or unbounded wealth, or, indeed, on account of any ordinary reasons, but because I was born in one of the highest cities in the world. I saw the light in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, then forming the northern part of the Spanish province of Peru. The first objects I remember beyond the courtyard of our house in which I used to play, with its fountain and flower bed in the centre, and surrounding arches of sun burned bricks, were lofty mountains towering up into the sky. From one of them, called Pichincha, which looked quite close through the clear atmosphere of that region, I remember seeing flames of fire and dark masses of smoke, intermingled with dust and ashes, spouting forth. Now and then, when the wind blew from it, thick showers of dust fell down over us, causing great consternation; for many thought that stones and rocks might follow and overwhelm the city. All day long a lofty column of smoke rose up towards the sky, and at night a vast mass of fire was seen ascending from the summit; but no harm was done to the city, so that we could gaze calmly at the spectacle without apprehension. Pichincha is, indeed, only one of several mountains in the neighbourhood from the tops of which bonfires occasionally blaze forth. Further off, but rising still higher, is the glittering cone of Cotopaxi, which, like a tyrant, has made its power felt by the devastation it has often caused in the plains which surround its base: while near it rise the peaks of Corazon and Ruminagui. Far more dreaded than their fires is the quaking and heaving and tumbling about of the earth, shaking down as it does human habitations and mountain tops, towers and steeples, and uprooting trees, and opening wide chasms, turning streams from their courses, and overwhelming towns and villages, and destroying in other ways the works of men's hands, and human beings themselves, in its wild commotion.