Alfred Russel Wallace is justly famous for his discoveries in Southeast Asia, from where he wrote to Charles Darwin outlining his theory of evolution by natural selection. His career as a tropical naturalist, however, began in the Amazon. Wallace concentrated his collecting on the Rio Negro and the Rio Vaupes and his collections and observations proved of great value to the scientific community in England. On his return home in 1852 disaster struck. The ship on which he was travelling caught fire and all his precious collections were destroyed. As he fled the ship he managed to salvage a small tin box with a few delicate pencil drawings. Wallace’s Amazonian adventure is told here, using mainly his own words and illustrated with these delicate drawings. He went on to become one of the defining figures of Victorian biology, and this is the story of his beginning.