This reprint by The Greenwood Press of a work originally published in 1878 is of interest to the local historian of Paraná and to the naturalist. Thomas P. Bigg-Wither was a member of the staff of an exploring and surveying expedition into the interior of Paraná in the early 1870s to map the route for a trans-Brazilian railroad. (The actual work of the group is never made clear until an appendix.)
The principal merit of the book for the general student of Brazil lies in the author’s description of animal, plant, and human curiosities. Bigg-Wither was a typical Victorian Englishman, carrying the white man’s burden into Brazil as he might have done, under different circumstances, into India, Africa, or China. He looked down on white Brazilians as inferiors who would profit from English management, training, diet, and cleanliness. The “niggers,” as he always refers to them, are stereotyped, and the Indians are subhuman. More space is devoted to hunting, especially of the tapir, than to any other topic. There are a few valuable asides about slavery and several interesting accounts of pathetically mismanaged colonization attempts by Europeans in the area.
One wonders why the publisher chose to reprint this book, at such expense, when other travel accounts of greater value deserve new editions.
