'Who in his sense will read, still less buy, a travel book of no scientific value about a place he has no intention of visiting?'. Waugh provides the answer to his own question in this entertaining chronicle of a South American journey. In it, he describes the isolated cattle country of Guiana, sparsely populated by a bizarre collection of visionaries, rogues and ranchers, and records his nightmarish experiences traveling on foot, by horse and by boat through the jungle into Brazil. He debunks the romantic notions attached to rough traveling - his trip is difficult, dangerous and extremely uncomfortable - and his acute and witty observations in this marvelous travelogue give his reader 'a share in the experience of travel'.