Two Against the Amazon

This was a strange book, for a number of reasons. Its title - Two Against the Amazon, suggested to me that the author, and companion Sebastian Snow, would travel together. Instead, they journey to Peru together, then split up and investigate separate potential sources of the Amazon. Snow heads off one way, and Brown another!Brown writes first about what Snow did, then what he did. As they meet up again near the end of the book, Snow is heading off for a “source to sea” expedition down the Amazon - which he writes bout in his book [b:My Amazon Adventure 41592554 My Amazon Adventure Sebastian Snow https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1535873017l/41592554.SX50.jpg 3471907], which I also own, but have not got to quite yet.Another strange aspect to this book was the author! He is an unusual character, and I found him quite hard to predict. People he met who he started to describe I thought ‘here we go - a rant about this guy coming up' but he loved him. Others who I thought ‘he will end up staying with this fellow a few days' he detested. He was hot and cold on all sorts of strange things in a very unpredictable way, such that I found myself betting against the likely outcome of a situation.The final odd thing was the three chapters of the book. The expedition(s) had ended, and no conclusion had yet been stated, but the author provides a Hints To Travellers chapter, in which he offers advice to would-be adventurers (despite the exact type of people he is advising are those he detested meeting in Peru) - such obvious and straightforward advice on - not staying in expensive hotels, not to flash your money around, to seek work on a ship to benefit from being paid to travel to your chosen destination (hardly ground breaking advice, I would have thought), obtaining letters of introduction. Etc etc.The next chapter is titled Some Conclusions and is split in two - The Source of the Amazon - where Brown downloads a heap of data - measurements, weather and rainfall observations etc, then states in a brief paragraph the conclusion he has made (incidentally this contradicts what Wikipedia states is considered by most people - however on this I tend to agree with Brown's reasoning for his selection.)Then, bizarrely the final half of the chapter is titled The Amazon as it Might be. Here Brown explains what ‘everyone' is doing wrong. Among this chapter are such strange suggestions as importing birds and livestock to see what works best, mass planting of plantation crops and eliminating insects (I guess he means mosquitoes) the method for this is enclosing every house in mesh, and then eliminating all still water - puddles and the like!! This in turn will support a massive population which can assist on dam projects, which will eliminate seasonal flooding and allow the native Indians to cultivate better food sources. Again, this assists with the plantation cropping to feed the growing population. But that is all a bit strange.What I haven't touched on are the parts of the book more standard, and actually very good. The actual travel, exploration and process for his data gathering (although he explains in much clearer detail what Snow was doing, rather than his own), and his interactions with those he meets. It is all quite readable.While this book is undated, and I can't recall any mention of the year in the text, I know it was originally published in 1952 - my Travel Book Club edition was probably 1953. Certainly the travel occurred before Everest was climbed in 1953, because there is mention of Eric Shipton heading off on a second Himalayan expedition - which would be the expedition prior to John Hunt's successful expedition.An odd one, but on balance probably 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3.