One of the most impressive of all Victorian scientists but also a marvelous writer, Bates' (1825-1892) account of his years in the upper reaches of the Amazon is almost too good to be true
- a great monument to human inquisitiveness as he battles great hoards of malevolent reptiles & insects in his quest for ever more obscure specimens on ever more narrow & creeper-choked tributaries. Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet & back through the centuries
- but also back into ideas & worlds frightening, ruthless & cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: great civilizations, walls of ice, violent & implacable jungles, deserts & mountains, & multitudes of birds & flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends & stories were treated as facts & in which so much was still to be discovered.