In Southern Light: Trekking Through Zaire and the Amazon

Vicarious travel with Shoumatoff is always rewardingnot only is he well informed, he is interested in everything. An earlier journey produced The Rivers Amazon; here he treks to the remote and sparsely populated Rio Nhamunda in northwest Brazil. Legend has designated the area as home of the Amazons, ""women without husbands,'' and Shoumatoff traces this universal myth among fragmented Indian tribes. In the jungles of Zaire, he walks with pygmies through the Ituri Forest, visits missionaries and hitchhikes to a nature reserve at the Ugandan border. It is an extraordinarily colorful voyage; Shoumatoff captures the essence of people on the move as well as the sights of exotic places. First serial to the New Yorker. (March)