Explorers of the Amazon - Hardcover

At present, Anthony Smith is fitting up a home-made steamboat, in which he will spend the better part of the next two years investigating the Amazon, the "world's largest river and holder of the most superlatives". He concentrates in this, the first of two books, on the most illustrious of the Amazon's explorers, beginning with Cabral, the Portugese explorer credited with having discovered Brazil in 1500, and ending with the last major expedition 392 years later. In that time the world has changed dramatically (the time-span roughly parallels that between Styvesant's arrival in Manhattan and the present day) although the Amazon will appear almost the same to the modern adventurer as it seemed to the first men that set eyes, or sail, upon it.