Journal of the Travels and Labours of Father Samuel Fritz in the River of the Amazons between 1686 and 1723 by The Rev. Dr. George Edmundson

Author:The Rev. Dr. George Edmundson [Edmundson, The Rev. Dr. George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317110316
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

APPENDIX

No. 1. Letters from the late SIR CLEMENTS MARKHAM, F.R.G.S. to the REV. GEORGE EDMUNDSON.

21, Eccleston Square, S.W.

21 Nov. 1904.

My dear Sir,

I have tried to find the writings of Father Samuel Fritz during many years without success. I found some account of him in the Reise Beschreibungen, iv, 56, xiv, p. 61, which I gave in my Introduction to the volume on the expeditions into the valley of the Amazon (1859), p. xxx, but I never could get his Journal or his map of 17071. You made a very important discovery in finding Fritz’s Journal. I am sure that the Council of the Hakluyt Society will gladly welcome your offer to undertake to edit the Journal of Father Fritz with an Introduction. The Secretary will write to you about it.

Ever yours very truly,

CLEMENTS MARKHAM.

In another letter dated 24 Nov. 1904, Sir Clements Markham writes:

I shall look forward to the Fritz volume. I suppose you know that the Hakluyt Society have issued two volumes on the Amazon…. Do you know my list of the tribes in the valley of the Amazon printed by the Anthropological Society in 1895?

Your volume must of course have the Fritz map of 17071.

No. 2. The Maps2 of FATHER SAMUEL FRITZ.

Among the many accomplishments of Father Samuel Fritz was that of being a careful and scientific geographer. His map of 1691 was the direct result of his journey, when very ill, from his mission station, Nuestra Señora de las Niebes, among the Jurimaguas to Pará to seek medical aid in 1689, and his return journey after a long detention by the Portuguese in 1691. Of this map he himself writes thus:

For better knowledge and general information concerning this great river Marañon or Amazons I have made this geographical map with no little toil and exertion, having navigated it in the greater part of its course as far as it is navigable. Although up till now so many maps have appeared without prejudice to any one, I say that no one of them has been drawn with the proper survey of levels, since they neither saw nor took the levels of this great river, or they extracted them from authors, whose writings left them confused. With this new exploration of the whole of this river Amazons that I have made and brought to light, I do not appraise my work for the carrying out of the duties of my undertaking, when one sees other greater undertakings of human diligence in this same enterprize either disappointed or hindered by fate, so that up till now no one has been able to accomplish his designs, unless I proclaim it as a work wholly under the guidance of the Divine Providence, that it was his good pleasure to prostrate me with mortal attacks of illness the better to make use of me, as one of his chief instruments.

The Father might well have appraised his work more highly than he did, for not only is his map wonderfully accurate so far as

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