Publisher's Synopsis
A series of romantic adventures attaches to each of the Columbian and Amazon rivers. I indulge the hope, that young readers who have so favorably received my former attempts to amuse and instruct them, in my several works reviving the fabulous legends of remote ages, will find equally attractive these true narratives of bold adventure, whose date is comparatively recent. Moreover, their scenes are laid, in the one instance, in our own country; and, in the other, in that great and rising empire of Brazil to which our distinguished naturalist, Prof. Agassiz, has gone on a pilgrimage of science.Thomas Bulfinch was an American writer born in Newton, Massachusetts, belonging to a well-educated Bostonian merchant family of modest means. His father was Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the Massachusetts State House in Boston and parts of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.. Bulfinch supported himself through his position at the Merchants' Bank of Boston. Although he reorganized Psalms to illustrate the history of the Hebrews, he is best known as the author of Bulfinch's Mythology, a compilation of three of his previous mythology works.