#MB18
First half of the 19th century
Octavo (ca. 21x16,5 cm). 3 pp. Brown ink on bluish paper; inscription on the 4th page “Translation of Chl. Waterton’s letter to __”. Fold marks, otherwise a very good letter.
A good 19th century English translation of Charles Waterton’s letter to the commander of Fort St. Joachim, Branco River, Portuguese Guiana (modern Brazil). The original letter was written in Spanish during Waterton’s first exploratory journey into Guyana’s remote inland in 1812, with one of the purposes being to study the nature of the wourali poison, better known as curare. The description of the meeting with the Portuguese commander, as well as the Spanish text of the letter were published in the first edition of Waterton’s travel account "Wanderings in South America, the South-West of the United States and the Antilles, in the Years 1812, 1816, 1820 and 1824" (London, 1825).
Waterton wished to see "the stronghold of the Portuguese for which I beg the favour of Your Excellency and permission", reassuring that his "motives are the most honorable <…> I came latterly from Demarara which place I left on the 5th of April to see this beautiful Country and collect a few Curiosities, particularly the poison called Wourali". He proceeded with the latest news of the war with Napoleon: "Valencia had fallen into the hands of the common Enemy and General Blake with his brave troops had been made prisoners of war <…> Lord Wellington had taken possession of the City of Rodrigo". An interesting note in the end tells: "I beg you to excuse this Letter not being written in Ink – and Indian having dropped the inkstand, it broke into pieces". The letter is signed as "Carlos Waterton."
Charles Waterton was a British naturalist and explorer; he travelled four times in the interior of Guiana in 1812-1824 and was the first to bring the curare poison to Europe. "In 1825, Charles Waterton described a classical experiment in which he kept a curarized female donkey alive by artificial respiration with a bellows through a tracheostomy (Wikipedia). Waterton is also considered as one of the first environmentalists. He has been described by David Attenborough as "one of the first people anywhere to recognize not only that the natural world was of great importance but that it needed protection as humanity made more and more demands on it" (Wikipedia).
