.. which would prove that I had not
wasted the advantage I had enjoyed, and would give me occupation and
amusement for many years to come! And now ... I had not one specimen to
illustrate the unknown lands I had trod, or to call back the
recollection of the wild scenes I had beheld! But such regrets were vain
... and I tried to occupy myself with the state of things which actually
existed."[7]
On reaching London, Wallace took a house in Upper Albany Street, where
his mother and his married sister (Mrs. Sims), with her husband, a
photographer, came to live with him. The next eighteen months were fully
occupied with sorting and arranging such collections as had previously
reached England; writing his book of travels up the Amazon and Rio Negro
(published in the autumn of 1853), and a little book on the palm trees
based on a number of fine pencil sketches he had preserved in a tin box,
the only thing saved from the wreck.
In summing up the most vivid impressions left on his mind, apart from
purely scientific results, after his four years in South America, he
wrote that the feature which he could never think of without delight was
"the wonderful variety and exquisite beauty of the butterflies and birds
.
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