Travels in Peru records the Swiss naturalist Johann Jakob von Tschudi’s journeys through nineteenth-century Peru, from the Pacific coast up into the high sierra, across the Cordilleras, and down into the Amazonian forests. Tschudi combines natural history with sharp observation of Andean peoples, customs, languages, and the legacy of Inca civilization, making the book a valuable early ethnographic and travel account.
Trained as a scientist, Tschudi attends closely to geography, climate, plants, and animals while also describing colonial society, indigenous communities, and antiquities. The result is a wide-ranging portrait of a country little known to European readers of his day. It remains a useful source for the study of Andean ethnology, exploration, and the early science of South America.