Why a Booktrail?
1867: A journey about discovery in the Amazon and ultimately beyond…
The Naturalist
What you need to know before your trail
Amateur naturalist Walter Ash is on the brink of setting off to travel up his beloved Amazon when fate intervenes, obliging his only son to take his place.
Paul Ash is more at ease among his books than in the field,but he takes a reluctant leave of absence from Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology to accompany his grieving stepmother and her young companion to the fabled River Sea. Paul was born there although he has no real memory of the place since he was only a child when his father took him away. He may have forgotten the Amazon but the Amazon has not forgotten him.
The Amazon works a peculiar magic on him, his father’s lovely widow and her friend–a quiet little Quaker named Rachel Weaver who proves strangely at home in the wild.
Travel Guide
A journey deep into the heart of the Amazon rainforest
This is a journey into the unknown. A young headstrong woman who wants to honour her husband who had planned to venture into the jungle of Brazil in order to collect specimens of its flora and fauna. Paul, is more of a student than an explorer and Rachel the assistant is not exactly the kind of person who would know how to survive in the wild but this unlikely party set off for the biggest adventure of their lives.
They travel by boat and by steamboat as their boat chugs toward Ilha das Tartarugas. They are ill-prepared for what they find there – a jungle full of unknown dangers, bad inhospitable weather and strange plants and animals which could kill them.
The descriptions of the wildlife, the noises, the sound of their song, the rustle of the reptiles in the thick trees. Oh and there’s the snakes and the giant turtles.
As they sail up the Amazon, they start to shed their inhibitions and their social mores. They change their attitudes as well as their clothes.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: The Naturalist
Author/Guide: Alissa York Destination: Philadelphia, Cambridge (MA), Amazon Rainforest, Brazil Departure Time: 1885
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