2
WANPEEINGS EN SOUTH AMEEICA.
1
/
/
CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.
Wanderings
in
South America.
BY
CHAKLE S WAT E ETON.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
NOEMAN MOORE, M.D.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limi
739 & 74i Broadway, New York.
INTBODUCTIOK
Plutarch, tlie most famous biographer of ancient;
times, is of opinion that the uses of telling the history
of the men of past ages are to teach wisdom, and to
show us by their example how best to spend life. His
method is to relate the history of a Greek statesman
or soldier, then the history of a Roman whose op-
portunities of fame resembled those of the Greek,
and finally to compare the two. He points out how
in the same straits the one hero had shown wisdom,
the other imprudence; and that he who had on one
occasion fallen short of greatness had on another
displayed the highest degree of manly virtue or of
genius. If Plutarch's method of teaching should ever
be followed by an English biographer, he will surely
place side by side and compare two English naturalists,
Gilbert White and Charles Waterton. White was a
clergyman of the Church of England, educated at
Oxford. Waterton was a Poman Catholic country
gentleman, who received his education in a Jesuit
college. White spent his life in the south of England,
and never travelled. Waterton lived in the north of
England, and spent more than ten years in the Forests
6
INTRODUCTION.
1
of Guiana. With all these points of difference, the
two naturalists were men of the same kind, and whose
lives both teach the same lesson. They are examples
to show that if a man will but look carefully round him
in the country his every-day walk may supply him
with an enjoyment costing nothing, but surpassed by
none which wealth can procure; with food for reflection
/however long he may live; with problems of which it
will be an endless pleasure to attempt the solution;
with a spectacle of Infinite Wisdom which will fill his
mind with awe and with a constantly increasing assur-
ance of Infinite Goodness, which will do much to help
him in all the trials of life. He who lives in the
country and has the love of outdoor natural history in
his heart, will never be lonely and never dull. Waterton
himself thought that this love of natural history must ]
be inborn and could not be acquired. If this be so, j
they ought indeed to be thankful who possess so happy
a gift. Even if Waterton's opinion be not absolutely ~
true, it is at least certain that the taste for outdoor
observation can only be acquired in the field, and that
this acquisition is rarely made after the period of boy-
hood. How important, then, to excite the attention of
children in the country to the sights around them. A
few will remain apathetic, the tastes of some will lie iir
other directions, but the time will not be lost, for some
will certainly take to natural history, and will have
happiness from it throughout life. No study is more
INTRODUCTION.
likely to confirm tliein in that content of which a
favourite poet of Waterton's truly says :—
"Content is wealth, the riches of the mind,
And happy he who can that treasure find."
Gilbert White and Charles Waterton are pre-eminent
among English naturalists for their complete devotion,
to the study; both excelled as observers, and the
Writings of both combine the interest of exact outdoor
observation with the charm of good literature. Water-
ton was born on June 3rd, 1782, at Walton Hall, in
the West Hiding of Yorkshire, a place which had for
several centuries been the seat of his family. His;
father, Thomas Waterton, was a squire, fond of fox-
hunting, but with other tastes, well .read in literature,
and delighting in the observation of the ways of birds
and beasts. His grandfather, whose grave is beneath
the most northern of a row of old elm trees in the park,
was imprisoned in York on account, of his known at-
tachment to the cause of the Young Pretender. As he
meant to join the rebel forces, the imprisonment prob-
ably saved his own life and preyented the ruin of the
family. In his grandson's old age, when another white-
haired Yorkshire squire was dining at Walton Hall;.
I remember that Waterton and he reminded one another
that their grandfathers had planned to march together
to Prince Charley, and that they themselves, so differ-
ently are the rights of kings regarded at different ages,
-8
INTRODUCTION.
"when sehoolboys together, had gone a-bird's-nesting on
;a day, in 1793, set apart for mourning for the decapi-
tation of Louis XVI. Waterton has himself told the
history of his earlier ancestors in an autobiography
which he wrote in 1837 :—
li The poet tells us, that the good qualities of man
and of cattle descend to their offspring. 'Fortes
creantur fortibus et bonis.' If this holds good, I ought
to be pretty well off, as far as breeding goes; for, on
"the father's side, I come in a direct line from Sir
'Thomas More, through my grandmother; whilst by the
mother's side I am akin to the Bedingf elds of Oxburgh,
to the Oharltons of Hazelside, and to the Swinburnes
of Capheaton. My family has been at Walton Hall
for some centuries. It emigrated into Yorkshire from
"Waterton, in the island of Axeholme in Lincolnshire,
where it had been for a very long time. Indeed, I dare
.-say I could trace it up to "Father Adam, if my pro-
genitors had only been as careful in preserving family
-records as the Arabs are in recording the pedigree of
their horses; for I do most firmly belieye that we are
. all descended from Adam and his wife Eve, notwith-
standing what certain self-sufficient philosophers may
have advanced to the contrary. Old Matt Prior had
probably an opportunity of laying his hands on family
--papers of the same purport as those which I have not
ilbeen ai>le to find; for he positively informs us that
Adam and Eve were his ancestors:—
INTRODUCTION.
1 Gentlemen, here, by your leave,
Lie the bones of Matthew Prior,
A son of Adam and of Eve:
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher ? *
Depend upon it, the man under Afrie's burning zone,
and he from the frozen regions of the North, have
both come from the same stem. Their difference in
colour and in feature may be traced to this: viz., that
the first has had too much, and the second too little,
sun.
"In remote times, some of my ancestors were suf-
ficiently notorious to have had their names handed
down to posterity. They fought at Cressy, and at
Agincourt, and at Marston Moor. Sir Robert Water-
ton was Governor of Pontefract Castle, and had charge-
of King Richard II. Sir Hugh Waterton was executor
to his Sovereign's will, and guardian to his daughters.
Ajaother ancestor was sent into France hj the King^
with orders to contract a royal marriage. He was
allowed thirteen shillings a day for his trouble and
travelling expenses. Another was Lord Chancellor of
England, and preferred to lose his head rather than,
sacrifice his conscience."
Waterton's childhood was spent at Walton Hall, and
I in his old age he used sometimes to recall the songs o£
his nurses. "One of them," he said, "is the only
poem in which the owl is pitied. She sang it to the1
tune of 'Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer/ and
the words are affecting
10
INTRODUCTION.
* Once I was a monarch's daughter,
And sat on a lady's knee:
But am now a nightly rover,
Banished to the ivy tree.
* Crying, Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo,
Hoo, hoo, my feet are cold!
Pity me, for here you see me
Persecuted, poor, and old.'"
He was already proficient in bird's-nesting when, in
1792, he was sent to a school kept by a Roman Catholic
priest, the Reverend Arthur Storey, at Tudhoe, then a
/small Tillage, five miles from Durham. Three years
before his death he wrote an account of his schooldays,
^vhich is printed in the Life prefixed to Messrs. Warne's
-edition of his "Natural History Essays." The honour-
able character of the schoolmaster, and the simple,
adventurous disposition of his pupil, are vividly de-
picted in this account. The following quotations
from it show that preparatory schools were less
luxurious in the last century than they commonly are
j&t the present day :—
"But now let me enter into the minutiae of Tudhoe
School. Mr. Storey had two wigs, one of which was
of a flaxen colour, without powder, and had only one
lower row of curls. The other had two rows, and was
exceedingly well powdered. When he appeared in the
schoolroom with this last wig on, I knew that I was
safe from the birch, as he invariably went to Durham
and spent the day there. But when I saw that he had
INTRODUCTION.
11
his flaxen wig on, my countenance fell. He was in the
schoolroom all day, and I was too often placed in a
very uncomfortable position at nightfall. But some-
times I had to come in contact with the birch-rod for
various frolics independent of school erudition. I once
smarted severely for an act of kindness. "We had a
boy named Bryan Salvin, from Croxdale Hall. He
was a dull, sluggish, and unwieldy lad, quite incapable
of climbing exertions. Being dissatisfied with the
regulations of the establishment, he came to me one
Palm Sunday, and entreated me to get into the school-
room through the window, and write a letter of com-
plaint to his sister Eliza in York. I did so, having
insinuated myself with vast- exertion through the iron
stanchions which secured the window; 'sed revocare
gradum.' Whilst I was thrusting might and main
through the stanchions, on my way out—suddenly, oh,
horrible! the schoolroom door flew open, and on the
threshold stood the Beverend Mr. Storey—a fiery,
frightful, formidable spectre! To my horror and con-
fusion I drove my foot quite through a pane of glass,
and there I stuck, impaled and imprisoned, but luckily
not injured by the broken glass. Whilst I was thus in
unexpected captivity, he cried out, in an angry voice,
'So you are there, Master Charles, are you?' He got
assistance, and they pulled me back by main force.
But as this was Palm Sunday my execution was
obligingly deferred until Monday morning.
A
12 INTROBTJCTIOH.
r
"But let us return to Tudhoe. In my time it was a
peaceful, healthy farming village, and abounded in
local curiosities. Just on the king's highway, betwixt
Durham and Bishop-Auckland, and one field from the
school, there stood a public-house called the 'White
Horse/ and kept by a man of the name of Charlton.
He had a real gaunt English mastiff, half-starved for
want of food, and so ferocious that nobody but himself
dared to approach it. This publican had also a mare,
surprising in her progeny; she had three foals, in three
successive years, not one of which had the least appear-
ance of a tail.
"One of Mr. Storey's powdered wigs was of so
tempting an aspect, on the shelf where it was laid up
in ordinary, that the cat actually kittened in it. I
saw her and her little ones all together in the warm
wig. He also kept a little white and black bitch,
apparently of King Charles's breed. One evening, as
we scholars were returning from a walk, Chloe started
a hare, which we surrounded and captured, and carried
in triumph to oily Mrs. Atkinson, who begged us a
play-day for our success.
"On Easter Sunday Mr. Storey always treated us to
* Pasche eggs.' They were boiled hard in a concoction
of whin-flowers, which rendered them beautifully
purple. We used them for warlike purposes, by hold-
ing them betwixt our forefinger and thumb with the
sharp end upwards, and as little exposed as possible.
INTRODUCTION.
13
An antagonist then approached, and with the sharp end
of his own egg struck this egg. If he succeeded in
cracking it, the vanquished egg was his; and he either
sold it for a halfpenny in the market, or reserved it for
his own eating. When all the sharp ends had been
crushed, then the blunt ends entered into battle. Thus
nearly every Pasche egg in the school had its career of
combat. The possessor of a strong* egg with a thick
shell would sometimes vanquish a dozen of his oppo-
nents, all of which the conqueror ultimately transferred
into his own stomach, when no more eggs with un-
broken ends remained to carry on the war of Easter
Week.
"The little black and white bitch once began to
snarl, and then to bark at me, when I was on a roving
expedition in quest of hens' nests. I took up half a
brick and knocked it head over heels. Mr. Storey was
watching at the time from one of the upper windows;
but I had not seen him, until I heard the sound of his
magisterial voice. He beckoned me to his room there
and then, and whipped me soundly for my pains.
"Four of us scholars stayed at Tudhoe during the
summer vacation, when all the rest had gone home.
Two of these had dispositions as malicious as those of
two old apes. One fine summer's morning they decoyed
me into a field (I was just then from my mother's
nursery) where there was a flock of geese. They
assured me that the geese had no right to be there;
14
INTRODUCTION.
and that it was necessary we should kill them, as they
were trespassing on our master's grass. The scamps
then furnished me with a hedge-stake. On approach-
ing the flock, behold the gander came out to meet me;
and whilst he was hissing defiance at us, I struck him
on the neck, and killed him outright. My comrades
immediately took to flight, and on reaching the house
informed our master of what I had done. But when
he heard my unvarnished account of the gander's death,
he did not say one single unkind word to me, but
scolded most severely the two boys who had led me
into the scrape. The geese belonged to a farmer
named John Hey, whose son Halph used to provide me
with birds' eggs. Ever after when I passed by his
house, some of the children would point to me and say..
'Taw killed aur guise.'
"At Bishop-Auckland there lived a man by the
name of Charles the Painter. He played extremely
well on the Northumberland bagpipe, and his neigh-
bour was a good performer on the flageolet. When we
had pleased our master by continued good conduct, he
would send for these two musicians, who gave us a
delightful evening concert in the general play-room.
Mr. Storey himself supplying an extra treat of fruit,
cakes, and tea.
"Tudhoe had her own ghosts and spectres, just as
the neighbouring villages had theirs. One was the
^——
INTRODUCTION. L>
house in the village; but I cannot affirm that I myself
ever saw it. It was an enormous mouse, of a dark
brown colour, and did an immensity of mischief. No
cat could face it; and as it wandered through the
village, all the dogs would take off, frightened out of*
their wits, and howling as they ran away. William
Wilkinson, Mr. Storey's farming man, told me he had
often seen it, but that it terrified him to such a degree
that he could not move from the place where he was
standing.
"Our master kept a large tom-cat in the house. A
fine young man, in the neighbouring village of Ferry-
hill, had been severely bitten by a cat, and he died
raving mad. On the day that we got this information
from Timothy Pickering, the carpenter at Tucllioe, I
was on the prowl for adventures, and in passing
through Mr. Storey's back kitchen, his big black cat
came up to me. Whilst I was tickling its bushy tail,
it turned round upon me, and gave me a severe bite in
the calf of the leg. This I kept a profound secret,
but I was quite sure I should go mad every day, for
many months afterwards.
"There was a blacksmith's shop leading down the
village to Tudhoe Old Hall. Just opposite this shop was
a pond, on the other side of the road. When any sudden
death was to take place, or any sudden ill to befall the
village, a large black horse used to emerge from it. and
walk slowly up and down the village, carrying a rider
16
INTRODUCTION.
without a keacL The blacksmith's grandfather, his
father, himself, his three sons, and two daughters, had
seen this midnight apparition rise out of the pond, and
return to it before the break of day. John Hicksou
and Neddy Hunt, two hangers-on at the blacksmith's
shop, had seen this phantom more than once, but they
never durst approach it. Indeed, every man and woman
and child believed in this centaur-spectre, and I am
not quite sure if our old master himself did not partly
believe that such a thing had occasionally been seen on
very dark nights.
"Tudhoe has no river, a misfortune 'valde deflendus.'
In other respects the vicinity was charming; and it
afforded an ample supply of woods and hedgerow trees
to insure a sufficient stock of carrion crows, jackdaws,
jays, magpies, brown owls, kestrels, merlins, and
sparrow-hawks, for the benefit of natural history and
mj own instruction and amusement."
In 1796 Waterton left Tudhoe school and went t©
Stony hurst "College in Lancashire. It was a country
house of the picturesque style of King James I., which
had just been made over by Mr. Weld of Lulworth to the
-Jesuits expelled from Liege. The country round
Stonyhurst is varied by hills and streams, and there
are mountains at no great distance.
"Whernside, Pendle Hill, and Ingleboro',
Three higher hills you'll not find England thoro',"
they are described, with equal disregard of exact
INTRODUCTION.
17
mensuration and of rhythm, in a local rhyme which
Waterton learned. Curlew used to fly by in flocks,
and the country people had also a rhyme about the
curlew :—
"Be she white or be she black,
She carries sixpence on her back,"
which Waterton used to say showed how our ancestors
valued the bird at table.
. At Stonyhurst he read a good deal of Latin and of
English literature, and acquired a taste for writing
Latin yerse. He always looked back on his education
there with satisfaction, and in after-life often went to
visit the college. Throughout life he never drank wine,
and this fortunate habit was the result of the good
advice of one of his teachers :—
"My master was Father Clifford, a first cousin of
the noble lord of that name. He had left the world,
and all its alluring follies, that he might serve Almighty
God more perfectly, and work his way with more
security up to the regions of eternal bliss. After
educating those entrusted to his charge with a care and
affection truly paternal, he burst a blood-vessel, and
retired to Pa>-~o for the benefit of a warmer climate.
There he died the death of the just, in the habit of
St. Ignatius.
"One day, when I was in the class of poetry, and
which was about two years before I left the college for
good and all, he called me up to his room. 'Charles,'
18
INTRODUCTION.
said he to me, in a tone of voice perfectly irresistible,
'I "have long, been studying your disposition, and T
clearly foresee that nothing will keep you at home.
You will journey into far-distant countries, where you
will be exposed to many dangers. There is only one
way for you to escape them. Promise me that, from
this day forward, you will never put your lips to wine,
or to spirituous liquors.' 'The sacrifice is nothing,'
added he ; 'but, in the end, it will prove of incalculable
advantage to you.' I agreed to his enlightened pro-
posal; and from that hour to this, which is now about
nine-and-thirty years, I have never swallowed one glass
of any kind of wine or of ardent spirits."
After leaving college Waterton stayed at home with
his father, and enjoyed fox-hunting for a while. To
the end of his days he liked to hear of a good run, and
he would now and then look with pleasure on an en-
graving which hung in the usual dining - room at
Walton Hall, representing Lord Darlington, the first
master of hounds he had known, well seated on a
powerful horse and surrounded by very muscular
hounds. In 1802 he went to visit two uncles in Spain,
and stayed for more than a year, and there had a
terrible experience of pestilence and of earthquake :—
"There began to be reports spread up and down the
city that the black vomit had made its appearance;
and every succeeding day brought testimony that
things were not as they ought to be. I myself, in an
-MOixoaacaxN:!
tiaio suj o% paxtan^jL uaqq. pne '.xaAvod siq ni noi^psnoo
a*j9ao nnq 9Aii.o ke:piiuni?}sng[ „[9qp?j[ 09. A'ppipamrai
?pi9AY 9pnn Apj 'v.oi?p?]^r hi p?Au.rB q.s.rg: stq no epun
Ira 0^. pnp[ A'-[.rvpior}j:x?d noaq puq oqA\. k^s9ud peSu
n'F st?a\. 9'pii?mi?'4siig[ aeq^jj -rap} 99s 0} paqsiAi pxro
'q<>[S' uop^j pi3i[ gprenreastig; jaqi'i;^ nnq nuojni 0}
&Hl|pAi J9.c5lI9$S9in 'B S13AY 9J9l{| 'Uoiqi^ III 9SH0q SIT{ ^
SniAiJ.1^ HQ -9pu s(A*-irp <^rq s\9pnn joodAm suai pq
S Atfpnopj no euirj 9mos np.'su 2[oi3q 9q ppiOA\. oq pins pae
'Jotini9A9 *A*UpTmg 9H0 S'll }J9|; 9 JJ 'jfylO Oq} Ill 90TT9S9J[d
siq p9pirera:9p ss9nisnq jo Qiiissdid aqq. su Snrpiooo'C
^uiij o.} 91111^ mo*ij i?.o\quj^[ 0) Stira-m^i apnn <fS9p[0
Ant—osiioq-A.ipuoo 9q; 0} pajqpi "[p? Aion pnq 9^
•papin.oLio puq .T9}.iinib :pqAi ni
ppoo Apoqon 'pi[} app.jqo.icI }t ^pnqi I pq ■ imneA'Kjj
eq} nio.ij p9jJodrai naaq pi?q p pqq. pps sjaqp
f piUAorq eq'+ ino.ij 911100 pi?q .lapjosip aq; pq1}. pauia.nj'B
9ttl0g *99II9p'|s'9d JO 9pp I? Til 9q 0} pa.TtqOap SEAY J9^JU
Aqjjoqs qoupv 'Alio eq| aAtkq 09. naas axaAi sapnppmii
'vWOUI S3p9AY 99.Tl[; HJ' jl q.otl0.iq| 9KI p£ nOipppHOO
jo q^on9Jp 'j9A9a\ojj -Ai3p pan gq} noon pi; pio $sv[
pn ppioo j pq;. pesoddus s-i?ai p pnu ksnisx?ds pjpnajp
poni 9qq. peq j •|q.§nt aq; Sni.inp J9A9j pnB imipniOA
qpAi pazias si?al p siq; J9|p sA'Kp Ai9j y \§nina:0Hi
L).X9n 9q| gsLinns' o.ioj9q nic[i?o sp.[ nt pii9p '3[00{Oco
quo y\s q!I't'9q pou^o ni sn q|iA\ pauip p'Bq oqAi 'nx-B^d'Bi)
os9^pj^ y *A\ip o; pio Simi{ 9onu.it^9ddi? snoioidsns
^soin jo ss9J?}pra b avus 'asnoq cs9p)nTi Am j'eon Agpu
20
INTRODUCTION.
li onse very unwell, there to die a martyr to his charity.
Father Bustamante breathed his last before daylight;
my uncle took to his bed, and never rose more. As
soon as we had received information of his sickness, I
immediately set out on foot for the city. His friend,
Mr. Power, now of Gibraltar, was already in his room,
doing everything that friendship could suggest or
prudence dictate. My uncle's athletic constitution
bore up against the disease much longer than we
thought it possible. He struggled with it for five days,
and sank at last about the hour of sunset. He stood
six feet four inches high; and was of so kind and
generous a disposition, that he was beloved by all who
knew him. Many a Spanish tear flowed when it was
known that he had ceased to be. We got him a kind
of coffin made, in which he was conveyed at midnight
to the outskirts of the town, there to be put into one of
the pits which the galley-slaves had dug during the
day for the reception of the dead. But they could not
spare room for the coffin; so the body was taken out of
it. and thrown upon the heap which already occu-
pied the pit. A Spanish marquis lay just below
him.
"Thousands died as though they had been seized
with cholera, others with black vomit, and others of
decider} yellow fever. There were a few instances of
some who departed this life with very little pain or bad
symptoms: they felt unwell, they went to bed, they
INTRODUCTION.
21
had an idea that they would not get better, and they
expired in a kind of slumber. It was sad in the
extreme to see the bodies placed in the streets at the
close of day, to be ready for the dead-carts as they
passed along. The dogs howled fearfully during the
night. All was gloom and horror in every street; and
yon might see the vultures on the strand tugging at the
bodies which were washed ashore by the eastern wind.
It was always said that 50,000 people left the city at
the commencement of the pestilence; and that 14,000
of those who remained in it fell victims to the disease.
"There was an intrigue going on at court, for the in-
terest of certain powerful people, to keep the port of
Malaga closed long after the city had been declared
free from the disorder; so that none of the vessels
in the mole could obtain permission to depart for their
destination.
"In the meantime the city was shaken with earth-
quakes; shock succeeding shock, till we all imagined
that a catastrophe awaited us similar to that which had
taken place at Lisbon. The pestilence killed you by
degrees, and its approaches were sufficiently slow, in
general, to enable you to submit to it with firmness and
resignation; but the idea of being swallowed up alive
by the yawning earth at a moment's notice, made you
sick at heart, and rendered you almost fearful of your
own shadow. The first shock took place at six in the
evening, with a noise as though a thousand carriages
INTRODUCTION.
had dashed against each other. This terrified many
people to such a degree that they paced all night long
up and down the Alameda, or public walk, rather than
retire to their homes. I went to bed a little after mid-
night, but was roused by another shock about five
o'clock in the morning. It gave the bed a motion
which made me fancy that it moved under me from
side to side. I sprang up, and having put on my un-
mentionables (we wore no trousers in those days), I ran
out, in all haste, to the Alameda. There the scene was
most distressing: multitudes of both sexes, some nearly
in a state of nudity, and others sick at stomach, were
huddled together, not knowing which way to turn or
what to do.
'Omnes eodem cogimur.5
However, it pleased Heaven, in its mercy, to spare us.
The succeeding shocks became weaker and weaker, till
.at last we felt no more of them."
A courageous sea-captain at last sailed away in
safety, though chased by the Spanish brigs of war, and
after thirty days at sea Waterton landed in England.
Another uncle had estates in Demerara, and in tne
autumn Waterton sailed thither from Portsmouth. He
landed at Georgetown, Demerara, in November, 1804,
and was soon delighted by the natural history of the
tropical forest. In 1806 his father died, and he returned
io England. He made four more journeys to Guiana,
-and, in 1825, published an account of them, entitled
INTRODUCTION.
"Wanderings in South America, the North-West of
the United States, and the Antilles, in the years 1812;
1816,1820, and 1824; with original instructions for the
perfect preservation of birds, &c, for cabinets of natural
history." The two first journeys are now reprinted
from the original text. The book at once attracted
general attention, became popular, and has taken a
place among permanent English literature. Unlike
most travellers, Waterton tells nothing of his personal
difficulties and discomforts, and encumbers his pages
with neither statistics nor information of the guide-
book kind. His observation of birds and beasts,
written down in the forests, and the description of the
forests themselves, fill all his pages. The great ant-
eater and the sloth were for the first time accurately de-
scribed by him. He showed that the sloth, instead of
being a deformed, unhappy creature, was admirably
adapted to its habitat. He explained the use of the
great claws of the ant-eater, and the curious gait which
they necessitated. The habits of the toucan, of the
houtou, of the campanero, and of many other birds, ~
were first correctly described by him. He determined
to catch a cayman or alligator, and at last hooked one
with a curious wooden hook of four barbs made for
him by an Indian.
The adventure which followed is perhaps one of the
most famous exploits of an English naturalist.
"We found a cayman, ten feet and a half long, fast
24
INTRODUCTION.
to the end of the rope. Nothing now remained to do,
but to get him out of the water without injuring his
scales, 'hoc opus, hie labor.' We mustered strong:
there were three Indians from the creek, there was my
own Indian, Tan; Daddy Quashi,* the negro from
Mrs. Peterson's; James, Mr. R. Edmonstone's man,
whom I was instructing to preserve birds; and, lastly,
myself.
"I informed the Indians that it was my intention to
draw him quietly out of the water, and then secure
him. They looked and stared at each other, and said
I might do it myself, but they would have no hand in
it; the cayman would worry some of us. On saying*
this, 'consedere duces,' they squatted on their hams
with the most perfect indifference.
"The Indians of these wilds have never been subject
to the least restraint; and I knew enough of them to
be aware, that if I tried to force them against their
will, they would take off, and leave me and my pre-
sents unheeded, and never return.
"Daddy Quashi was for applying to our guns, as-
usual, considering them our best and safest friends.
I immediately offered to knock him down for his
cowardice, and he shrank back, begging that I would
* The negroes of the West Coast of Africa, as I am informed
by Dr. Kodjoe Benjamin William Kwatei-kpakpafio, of
Accra, take their names from the day of the week on which
they are born: Quashi (Kwasi) is Sunday; Kodjoe, Monday;
Kerne, Tuesday.—N. M.
INTRODUCTION.
be cautious, and not get myself worried; and apolo-
gising for his own want of resolution. My Indian
was now in conversation with the others, and they
asked nie if I would allow them to shoot a dozen
arrows into him, and thus disable him. This would
have ruined all. I had come above three hundred miles
on purpose to get a cayman uninjured, and not to
carry back a mutilated specimen. I rejected their
proposition with firmness, and darted a disdainful eye
upon the Indians.
"Daddy Quashi was again beginning to remonstrate,
and I chased him on the sand-bank for a quarter
of a mile. He told me afterwards, he thought he
should have dropped down dead with fright, for he
was firmly persuaded, if I had caught hirn, I should
have bundled him into the cayman's jaws. Here then
we stood, in silence, like a calm before a thunder-storm.
Hoc res summa loco. Scinditur in contraria val-
gus/ They wanted to kill him, and I wanted to take
him alive.
"I now walked up and down the sand, revolving a
dozen projects in my head. The canoe was at a con-
siderable distance, and I ordered the people to bring it
round to the place where we were. The mast was
eight feet long, and not much thicker than my wrist.
I took it out of the canoe., and wrapped the sail round
. the end of it. Now it appeared clear to me, that if I
went down upon one knee, and held the mast in the same
w
INTRODUCTION.
position as the soldier holds his "bayonet when rushing
to the charge, I could for.ce it down the caymans
throat, should he come open-mouthed at me. When
this was told to the Indians, they brightened up, and
said they would help me to pull him out of the river.
"' Brave squad!' said I to myself, '" Audax omnia
perpeti," now that you have got me betwixt yourselves
and danger.' I then mustered all hands for the last
time before the battle. We were, four South American
savages, two negroes from Africa, a Creole from Trini-
dad, and myself, a white man from Yorkshire. In fact*
a little Tower of Babel group, in dress, no dress, ad-
dress, and language.
"Daddy Quashi hung in the rear; I showed him a
large Spanish knife, which I always carried in the
waistband of my trousers: it spoke volumes to him,
and he shrugged up his shoulders in absolute despair.
The sun was just peeping over the high forests on the
eastern hills, as if coming to look on, and bid us act
with becoming fortitude. I placed all the people at
the end of the rope, and ordered them to pull till the
cayman appeared on the surface of the water: and
then, should he plunge, to slacken the rope and let him
go again into the deep.
"I now took the mast of the canoe in my hand (the
sail being tied round the end of the mast) and sank
down upon one knee, about four yards from the water's
edge, determining to thrust it down his throat, in case
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pajpid Adiijj "Ip:p?ipaniniT pniq no unq aAi?q pn\;
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p9Snn^d 9q f 9013jjus 9q^. o; uuntA^o 9q; p9{pid 9jdo9d
eqjj *a\u9J xA')g 9q; jo opis .xaq-jo oq^ no sni9q.i9()
jo (].qS*noq) j pni? *nor;iui|Ts siq^ ni 9];qi3)JOjmoonn
^i?qAi9mos ^{9j i£pii«^i90 j •A^iiiii^ioddo iw am 9Af5 aq
INTRODUCTION.
tliem to pull me and my beast of burthen farther in-
land. I was apprehensive the rope might break, and
then there would have been every chance of going
down to the regions under water with the cayman.
That would have been more perilous than Arion's
marine morning ride :—
'Delphini insidens vada CEerula sulcat Arion.'
"The people now dragged us about forty yards on
the sand; it was the first and last time I was ever on
a cayman's back. Should it be asked, how I managed
to keep my seat, I would answer—I hunted some
years with Lord Darlington's fox-hounds.
"After repeated attempts to regain his liberty, th©
cayman gave in, and became tranquil through exhaus-
tion. I now managed to tie up his jaws, and firmly
secured his fore-feet in the position I had held them.
We had now another severe struggle for superiority,
but he was soon overcome, and again remained quiet.
While some of the people were pressing upon his head
aud shoulders, I threw myself on his tail, and by keep-
ing it down to the sand, prevented him from kicking up
another dust. He was finally conveyed to the canoe,
and then to the place where we had suspended our
hammocks. There I cut his throat; and after break-
fast was over, commenced the dissection."
After his fourth journey Waterton occasionally
travelled on the Continent, but for the most part
INTRODUCTION.
resided at Walton Hall. In the park he made
observations afterwards published as u Essays on
Natural History," in three series, and since reprinted,
with his Life and Letters, by Messrs. Warne and Co.
Walton Hall is situated on an island surrounded by
ite ancient moat, a lake of about five-and-twenty acres in
extent. From the shores of the lake the land rises;
parts of the slope, and nearly all the highest part, being
covered with wood.
In one wood there was a large heronry, in another a
rooker}r. Several hollow trees were haunted by owls,
hq the summer goat-suckers were always to be seen in
the evening flying about two oaks on the hill. At
one end of the lake in summer the kingfisher might
be watched fishing, and throughout the year herons
waded round its shores picking up fresh-water mussels,
er stood motionless for hours, watching for fish. In
winter, when the lake was frozen, three or four hund-
red wild duck, with teal and pochards, rested on it
all day, and flew away at night to feed; while
widgeons fed by day on its shores. Coots and water-
liens used to come close to the windows and pick
lap food put out for them. The Squire built a wall
nine feet high all round his park, and he used
laughingly to say that he paid for it with the cost
of the wine which he did not drink after dinner.
A more delightful home for a naturalist could not
fcave been. No shot was ever fired within the park
A
INTRODUCTION.


wall, and every year more birds came. Waterton used
often to quote the lines :—
and each new-comer added to his happiness. In his
latter days the household usually consisted of the
Squire, as he was always called, and of his two
sisters-in-law, for he had lost his wife soon after
his marriage in 1829. He breakfasted at eight, dined
in the middle of the day, and drank tea in the
evening. He went to bed early, and slept upon the
bare floor, with a block of wood for his pillow. He
rose for the day at half-past three, and spent the hour
from four to five at prayer in his chapel. He then
read every morning a chapter in a Spanish Life of
St. Francis Xavier, followed by a chapter of "Don
Quixote in the original, after which he used to stuff
birds or write letters till breakfast. Most of the day
he spent in the open air, and when the weather was cold
would light a fire of sticks and warm himself by it.
So active did he continue to the end of his days, that on
his eightieth birthday he climbed an oak in my company.
He was very kind to the poor, and threw open a beau-
tiful part of his park to excursionists all through the
summer. He had a very tender heart for beasts and
birds, as well as for men. If a cat looked hungry he
would see that she had a meal, and sometimes when he
'' No bird that haunts my valley free
To slaughter I condemn;
Taught by the Power that pities me,
I learn to pity them ;"

'KOixonaomMT
•(•oq pnu aiure^\) ojoojij Treraio^ Aq 'joxfttve oqq. jo 9jq -8 qqm |
'pe^rpe 'noq.J9q.i^ sapmjQ A*q ^'sAussg; aio^sijj I^Jti^JSI,, *
siq no pne qad'Gqo aq| 0| Aia.ipq^iM put? 'di\ eijoM. ttoos
ejj *3[i?o aq^. jo .mo"[oo 3j.TBp aift qq.iAY ^s-bi^xioo pijicpraaq
b pgni.ioj ircq iC.iOAfis 3[0iqq. siq pnt? 'o^qir; t? no paoiqd.
si?ai qoiqAi 'A\0]j:ui uopooAi siq nodu pa^sa.i psaq sijj 1
•^uoro nBi|i?^i a.o.riq ^ hi du podd'BJAi a.in siq A*q deopv
£ni}<}is s'bav. a•iuoo.t siq ni nuq pa')isiA j q-)^£ AVpj no
qjqSnipiui Q.iopq ^l\m y 'toduqo siq o.| ^ista ^ioqs it
pred pm? la^oAu? sauavti? aq .nioq ^v>\[\ .toj '^qSrapim
aa^ju |suC miq qjiAi ^qo pnu o.S ocj. 'nor^iqiAni s^a.imbg
qx[1 no 'pasn pni? 'norjuimuuxo nn joj .oiapuaj sijay j
/S-Oessg; siq jo iiopipa ^sa^iq oq^ oj paxua.id si qoiqAV
A>qd,T?j.o0iq aq) in s.inoq 'jsiq siq paquosap snq} 9Ai?q
pnt; 'paip ai[ naqAi no-ip^*^ .oniAi?)S suay j ■ao'Gj siq
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-£q)id srq 'axnoofaAv A|pnp| siq ^ajojoj .laAan itbo pm?
'diqspnauij siq paAopna j an) siq jo pna aq) sp.ii^AYOjj
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^naJApjiq aq) aaiii?)sip i; )i; )ii?AYp]iiOA\.aq '-}iar>j pooj jo
)iq 'B pnu <)on ppioo aq j.j -)i )nioddi3Sip O'j .reaq '|ou p|iioo
eq piiB 'ii^oiu aq^ joao a.opi.ic[ aq^ jo pna aq) ^i? .oiiuiaAa
aq^ ni miq aoj iivas. oy. pasn qoiqAv asoo.^ s s-uay aaaq^ .toj
c< ,4 9soo.o )i?q.) )s\kI .)a.§ joao aAv H'61!8 « 'nonredraoa
siq o^. Xus ppiOAv aq ^ji^ai noonjaaji? siq no ^ui^j^s
aiojaq ;a^aod siq nt p^ajq jo '4sii.to 'B ^nd o^ na^^oSjoj pw
INTRODUCTION.
return we talked together for three-quarters of an hour
about the brown owl, the nightjar and other birds.
The next morning, May 25, he was unusually cheerful,
and said to me," That was a very pleasant little confab we
had last night: I do not suppose there was such another
going on in England at the same time." After break-
fast we went with a carpenter to finish some bridges at
the far end of the park. The work was completed, and
we were proceeding homewards when, in crossing a
small bridge, a bramble caught the Squire's foot, and
he fell heavily upon a log. He was greatly shaken, and
said he thought he was dying. He walked, notwithstand-
ing, a little way, and was then compelled to lie down.
He would not permit his sufferings to distract his
mind, and he pointed out to the carpenter some trees
which were to be felled. He j>resently continued his
route, and managed to reach the spot where the boat
was moored. Hitherto he had refused all assistance,
but he could not step from the bank into the boat, and
he said, "I am afraid I must ask you to help me in."
He. walked from the landing-place into the house,
changed his clothes, and came and sat in the large room
below. The pain increasing, he rose from his seat after |
he had seen his doctor, and though he had been bentj
double with anguish, he persisted in walking up-stairs
without help, and would have gone to his own room in
the top storey, if, for the sake of saving trouble to
©thers, he had not been induced to stop half-way in
INTRODUCTION.
Miss Edmonstone's sitting-rooni. Here lie lay down
upon the sofa, and was attended by his sisters-in-law.
The pain abated, and the next day he seemed better.
In the afternoon he talked to me a good deal, chiefly
about natural history. But he was well aware of his
perilous condition, for he remarked to me, "This is a
bad business," and ]ater on he felt his pulse often, and
said, l' It is a bad case." He was more than self-
possessed. A benignant cheerfulness beamed from his
mind, and in the tits of pain he frequently looked up
with a gentle smile, and made some little joke. To-
wards midnight he grew worse. The priest, the
Reverend R. Browne, was summoned, and Waterton
got ready to die. He pulled himself upright without
help, sat in the middle of the sofa, and gave his bless-
ing in turn to his grandson, Charlie, to his grand-
daughter, Mary, to each of his sisters-in-law, to his
niece, and to myself, and left a message for his son,
who was hastening back from Rome. He then received
the last sacraments, repeated all the responses, Saint
Bernard's hymn in English, and the first two verses of
the Dies Irce. The end was now at hand, and he died
at twenty-seven minutes past two in the morning of
May 27, 1865. The window was open. The sky was
beginning to grow grey, a few rooks had cawed, the
swallows were twittering, the landrail was craking from
the Ox-close, and a favourite cock, which he used to call
; B—54
INTRODUCTION.
his morning gun, leaped out from some hollies, and
gave his accustomed crow. The ear of his master was
deaf to the call. He had obeyed a sublinier summons,
and had woke up to the glories of the eternal world.
He was buried on his birthday, the 3rd of June,
between two great oaks at the far end of the lake, the
oldest trees in the park. He had put up a rough stone
cross to mark the spot where he wished to be buried.
Often on summer days he had sat in the shade of these
oaks watching the kingfishers. "Cock Hobin and the
magpies," he said to me as we sat by the trees one day,
"will mourn my loss, and you will sometimes remember
me when I lie here." At the foot of the cross is a
Latin inscription which he wrote himself. It could
hardly be simpler: "Pray for the soul of Charles
Waterton, whose tired bones are buried near this
cross." The dates of his birth and death are added.
Walton Hall is no longer the home of the Watertons,
the oaks are too old to flourish many years more, and
in time the stone cross may be overthrown and the
exact burial place of Waterton be forgotten; but his
'* Wanderings in South America" and his "Natural His-
tory Essays" will always be read, and are for him a memo-
rial like that claimed by the poet he read of tenest—
"quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignes,
Nec potent ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas."
Norman Moore. )
WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA.
"nec herba, nec la tens in asperis
Radix fefellit me loeis."
In the month of April, 1812, I left the town of Stab-
roek, to travel through the wilds of Demerara and
Essequibo, a part of ci-devant Dutch Guiana, in South
America.
The chief objects in view were to collect a quantity
of the strongest wourali-poison; and to reach the in-
land frontier fort of Portuguese Guiana.
It would be a tedious journey for him who wishes to
travel through these wilds to set out from Stabroek on
foot. The sun would exhaust him in his attempts to
wade through the swamps, and the mosquitos at night
would deprive him of every hour of sleep.
The road for horses runs parallel to the river, but it
extends a very little way, and even ends before the
cultivation of the plantation ceases.
■
A
WANDERINGS IN
The only mode then that remains is to proceed by
water; and when yon come to the high lands, yon may
make yonr way through the forest on foot, or continue
your route on the river.
After passing the third island in the river Demerara,
there are few plantations to be seen, and those not
joining on to one another, but separated by large tracts
of wood.
The Loo is the last where the sugar-cane is growing.
The greater part of its negroes have just been ordered
to another estate; and ere a few months shall have
elapsed all signs of cultivation will be lost in under-
wood.
Higher up stand the sugar-works of Amelia's Waard,
solitary and abandoned; and after passing these there
is not a ruin to inform the traveller that either coffee
or sugar has been cultivated.
From Amelia's Waard an unbroken range of forest
covers each bank of the river, saving here and there
where a hut discovers itself, inhabited hj free people
of colour, with a rood or two of bared ground about
it; or where the wood-cutter has erected himself a
dwelling, and cleared a few acres for pasturage.
Sometimes you see level ground on each side of you
for two or three hours at a stretch; at other times a
gently sloping hill presents itself; and often,
turning a point, the eye is pleased with the contras
o
■as
SOUTH AMERICA.
of an almost perpendicular height jutting into the
water. The trees put you in mind of an eternal
spring, with summer and autumn kindly blended
into it.
Here you may see a sloping extent of nohle trees,
whose foliage displays a charming variety of every
shade from the lightest to the darkest green and
purple. The tops of some are crowned with bloom of
the loveliest hue; while the boughs of others bend
with a profusion of seeds and fruits.
Those whose heads have been bared by time, or
blasted by the thunder-storm, strike the eye, as a
mournful sound does the ear in music; and seem to
beckon to the sentimental traveller to stop a moment
or two, and see that the forests which surround him,
like men and kingdoms, have their periods of misfor-
tune and decay.
• The first rocks of any considerable size that are ob-
served on the side of the river are at a place called
Saba, from the Indian word, which means a stone.
They appear sloping down to the water's edge, not
shelvy, but smooth, and their exuberances rounded off,
and, in some places, deeply furrowed, as though they
had been worn with continual floods of water.
There are patches of soil up and down, and the huge
stones amongst them produce a pleasing and novel
effect. You see a few coffee-trees of a fine luxuriant
WANDERINGS IN
growth; and nearly on the top of Saba stands tho
house of the post-holder.
He is appointed by government to give in his report
to the protector of the Indians of what is going on
amongst them, and to prevent suspicious people from
passing up the river.
When the Indians assemble here the stranger may
have an opportunity of seeing the aborigines dancing
to the sound of their country music, and painted in
their native style. They will shoot their arrows for
him with an unerring aim, and send the poisoned dart
from the blow-pipe true to its destination; and hero
he may often view all the different shades, from the
red savage to the white man, and from the white man
to the sootiest son of Africa.
Beyond this post there are no more habitations of
white men, or free people of colour.
In a country so extensively covered with wood as
this is, having every advantage that a tropical sun and
the richest mould, in many places, can give to vegeta-
tion, it is natural to look for trees of very large
dimensions; but it is rare to meet with them above
six yards in circumference. If larger have ever existed,
they had fallen a sacrifice either to the axe or to fire.
If, however, they disappoint you in size, they make
ample amends in height. Heedless and bankrupt in
all curiosity must he be who can journey on without
V


SOUTH AMEBICA.
stopping to take a view of the towering mora. Its
topmost "branch, when naked with age or dried by
accident, is the favourite resort of the toucan. Many a
time has this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike
him from the gun of the fowler beneath, and owed his
life to the distance betwixt them.
The trees which form these far-extending wilds are
as useful as they are ornamental. It would take a
volume of itself to describe them.
The green-heart, famous for its hardness and dura-
bility; the hackea, for its toughness; the ducalabali,
surpassing mahogany; the ebony and letter-wood
vieing with the choicest woods of the old world; the
locust tree, yielding copal; and the hayawa and olou
trees, furnishing a sweet-smelling resin, are all to be
met with in the forest, betwixt the plantations and the
rock Saba.
Beyond this rock the country has been little ex-
plored; but it is very probable that these, and a vast
collection of other kinds, and possibly many new
species, are scattered up and down, in all directions,
through the swamps, and hills, and savannas of ci-
devant Dutch Guiana.
On viewing the stately trees around him the natural-
ist will observe many of them bearing leaves, and
blossoms, and fruit, not their own.
The wild fig-tree, as large as a common English
A
WANDERINGS IN


apple-tree, often rears itself from one of the thick
branches at the top of the mora; and when its fruit is
ripe, to it the birds resort for nourishment. It was to
an undigested seed, passing through the body of the
bird which had perched on the mora, that the fig-tree
first owed its elevated station there. The sap of the
mora raised it into full bearing; but now, in its turn,
it is doomed to contribute a portion df its own sap and
juices towards the growth of different species of vines,
the seeds of which, also, the birds deposited on its
branches. These soon vegetate, and bear fruit in great
quantities; so what with their usurpation of the
resources of the fig-tree, and the fig-tree of the mora,
the mora, unable to support a charge which nature
never intended it should, languishes and dies under
its burden; and then the fig-tree, and its usurping
progeny of vines, receiving no more succour from their
late foster-parent, droop and perish in their turn.
A vine called the bush-rope by the wood-cutters, on
account of its use in hauling out the heaviest timber,
has a singular appearance in the forests of Demerara,
Sometimes you see it nearly as thick as a man's body,
twisted like a cork-screw round the tallest trees, and
rearing its head high above their tops. At other times
three or four of them, like strands in a cable, join tree
and tree and branch and branch together. Others, de-
scending from on high, take root as soon as their ex-

SOUTH AMERICA.
41
tremity touches the ground, and appear like shrouds
and stays supporting the main-mast of a line-of-battle
ship; while others, sending out parallel, oblique, hori-
zontal, and perpendicular shoots in all directions, put
you in mind of what travellers call a matted forest.
Oftentimes a tree, above a hundred feet high, uprooted
by the whirlwind, is stopped in its fall by these
amazing cables of nature; and hence it is that you
account for the phenomenon of seeing trees not only
vegetating, but sending forth vigorous shoots, though
far from their perpendicular, and their trunks in-
clined to every degree from the meridian to the
horizon.
Their heads remain firmly supported by the bush-
rope; many of their roots soon refix themselves in the
earth, and frequently a strong shoot will sprout out
perpendicularly from near the root of the reclined
trunk, and in time become a fine tree. No grass
grows under the trees; and few weeds, except in the
swamps.
The high grounds are pretty clear of underwood,
and with a cutlass to sever the small bush-ropes, it is
not difficult walking among' the trees.
The soil, chiefly formed by the fallen leaves and
decayed trees, is very rich and fertile in the valleys.
On the hills it is little better than sand. The rains-
seem to have carri ed away and swept into the valleys
42
WANDERINGS IN
every particle winch nature intended to have formed a
mould.
Four-footed animals are scarce, considering how very
thinly these forests are inhabited by men.
Several species of the animal commonly called
tiger, though in reality it approaches nearer to the
leopard, are found here; and two of their diminutives,
named tiger-cats. The tapir, the labba, and deer,
afford excellent food, and chiefly frequent the swamps
and low ground, near the sides of the river and creeks.
In stating that four-footed animals are scarce, the
peccary must be excepted. Three or four hundred of
them herd together, and traverse the wilds in all direc-
tions, in quest of roots and fallen seeds. The Indians
mostly shoot them with poisoned arrows. When
wounded, they run about one hundred and fifty paces;
they then drop, and make wholesome food.
The red monkey, erroneously called the baboon, is
heard oftener than it is seen; while the common brown
monkey, the bisa, and sacawinki, rove from tree to tree,
and amuse the stranger as he journeys on.
A species of the polecat, and another of the fox, are
destructive to the Indian's poultry; while the opossum,
the guana, and salempenta afford him a delicious
morsel.
The small ant-bear, and the large one, remarkable t
for its long, broad, bushy tail, are sometimes seen on
SOUTH AMERICA.
the tops of the wood-ants' nests; the armadillos bore
in the sand-hills, like rabbits in a warren; and the
porcupine is now and then discovered in the trees over
your head.
This, too, is the native country of the sloth. His
looks, his gestures, and his cries, all conspire to entreat
you to take pity on him. These are the only weapons
of defence which nature has given him. While other
animals assemble in herds, or in pairs range through
these boundless wilds, the sloth is solitary, and almost
stationary ; he cannot escape from you. It is said, his
piteous moans make the tiger relent, and turn out of
the way. Do not then level your gun at him, or pierce
him with a poisoned arrow; he has never hurt one
living creature. A few leaves, and those of the
commonest and coarsest kind, are all he asks for his
support. On comparing liim with other animals, you
would say that you could perceive deficiency, deformity,
and superabundance in his composition. He has no
cutting teeth, and though four stomachs, he still wants
the long intestines of ruminating animals. IJe has
only one inferior aperture, as in birds. He has no
soles to his feet, nor has he the power of moving his
toes separately. His hair is flat, and puts you in mind
of grass withered by the wintiy blast. His legs are
too short; they appear deformed by the manner in
which they are joined to the body; and when he is on
44
WANDERINGS IN
the ground, they seem as if only calculated to be of
use in climbing trees. He has forty-six ribs, while the
elephant has only forty; and his claws are dispropor-
tionably long. Were you to mark down, upon a gra-
duated scale, the different claims to superiority amongst
the four-footed animals, this poor ill-formed creature's
claim would be the last upon the lowest degree.
Demerara yields to no country in the world in her
wonderful and beautiful productions of the feathered
race. Here the finest precious stones are far surpassed
by the vivid tints which adorn the birds. The
naturalist may exclaim, that nature has not known
where to stop in forming new species, and painting her
requisite shades. Almost every one of those singular
and elegant birds described by Buff:on as belonging to
Cayenne are to be met with in Demerara; but it is
only by an indefatigable naturalist that they are to be
found.
The scarlet curlew breeds in innumerable quantities
in the muddy islands on the coasts of Pomauron; the
egrets and crabiers in the same place. They resort to
the mud-flats at ebbing water, while thousands of sand-
pipers and plovers, with here and there a spoonbill
and flamingo, are seen amongst them. The pelicans
go farther out to sea, but return at sundown to the
courada trees. The humming-birds are chiefly to be
found near the flowers at which each of the species of
SOUTH AMERICA.
45
the genus is wont to feed. The pie, the gallinaceous,
the columbine, and passerine tribes, resort to the fruit-
bearing trees.
Tou never fail to see the common vulture where
there is carrion. In passing up the river there was an
opportunity of seeing a pair of the king of the vultures;
they were sitting on the naked branch of a tree, with
about a dozen of the common ones with them. A tiger
had killed a goat the day before; he had been driven
away in the act of sucking the blood, and not finding
it safe or prudent to return, the goat remained in the
same place where he had killed it; it had begun to
putrefy, and the vultures had arrived that morning to
claim the savoury morsel.
At the close of day, the vampires leave the hollow
trees, whither they had fled at the morning*'s dawn, and
scour along the river's banks in quest of prey. On
waking from sleep, the astonished traveller finds his
hammock all stained with blood. It is the vampire
that has sucked hiin. Not man alone, but every un-
protected animal, is exposed to his depredations; and
so gently does this nocturnal surgeon draw the blood,
that instead of being roused, the patient is lulled into a
still prof ounder sleep. There are two species of vam-
pire in Demerara, and both suck living animals; one is
rather larger than the common bat; the other measures
.above two feet from wing to wing extended.
46
WANDERINGS IN
Snakes are frequently met with in the woods betwixt
the sea-coast and the rock Saba, chiefly near the creeks
and on the banks of the riyer. They are large, beauti-
ful, and formidable. The rattlesnake seems partial to
a tract of ground known by the name of Canal Number
Three; there the effects of his poison will be long re-
membered.
The camoudi^snake has been killed from thirty to
forty feet long; though not venomous, his size renders
him destructive to the passing animals. The Spaniards
in the Oroonocjue positively affirm that he grows to the
length of seventy or eighty feet, and that he will de-
stroy the strongest and largest bull. His name seems
to confirm this; there he is called "matatoro," which
literally means "bull-killer." Thus he may be ranked
amongst the deadly snakes: for it comes nearly to the
same thing in the end, whether the victim dies by
poison from the fangs, which corrupts his blood and
makes it stink horribly, or whether his body be crushed
to mummy and swallowed by this hideous beast.
The whipsnake, of a beautiful changing green, and
the coral with alternate broad transverse bars of black
and red, glide from bush to bush, and may be handled
with safety;, they are harmless little creatures.
The labarri snake is speckled, of a dirty brown
colour, and can scarcely be distinguished from the
ground or stump on which he is coiled up; he grows
SOUTH AMERICA.
47
to the length of about eight feet, and his bite often
proves fatal in a few minutes.
Unrivalled in his display of every lovely colour of
the rainbow, and unmatched in the effects of his deadly
poison, the counacouchi glides undaunted on, sole
monarch of these forests; he is commonly known by
the name of the bush-master. Both man and beast
fly before him, and allow him to pursue an undisputed
path. He sometimes grows to the length of fourteen
feet.
A few small caymans, from two to twelve feet long,
may be observed now and then in passing up and
down the river: they just keep their heads above the
water, and a stranger would not know them from a
rotten stump.
Lizards of the finest green, brown, and copper
colour, from two inches to two feet and a half long, are
ever and anon rustling among the fallen leaves, and
crossing the path before you; whilst the chameleon is
busily employed in chasing insects round the trunks of
the neighbouring trees.
The fish are of many different sorts, and well-tasted,
but not, generally speaking, very plentiful. It is pro-
bable that their numbers are considerably thinned
by the otters, which are much larger than those of
Europe. In going through the overflowed savannas
which have all a communication wi+h the river, you
48
WANDERINGS IN
1
may often see a dozen or two of them sporting among
the sedges before you.
This warm and hnmid climate seems particularly
adapted to the producing of insects; it gives birth to
myriads, beautiful past description in their variety of
tints, astonishing in their form and size, and many of
them noxious in their qualities.
He whose eye can distinguish the various beauties
of uncultivated nature, and whose ear is not shut to the
wild sounds in the woods, will be delighted in passing
up the river Demerara. Every now and then, the
maam or tinamou sends forth one long and plaintive
whistle from the depths of the forest, and then stops;
whilst the yelping of the toucan, and the shrill voice
of the bird called pi-pi-yo, is heard during the interval.
The campanero never fails to attract the attention of
the passenger: at a distance of nearly three miles
you may hear this snow-white bird tolling every four
or five minutes, like the distant convent bell. From
six to nine in the morning the forests resound with the
mingled cries and strains of the feathered race; after
this they gradually die away. From eleven to three
all nature is hushed as in a midnight silence, and
scarce a note is heard, saving that of the campanero
and the pi-pi-yo; it is then that, oppressed by the
solar heat, the birds retire to the thickest shade and
wait for the refreshing cool of evening.
SOUTH AMERICA.
49
At sun-down the vampires, bats, and goat-suckers
dart from their lonely retreat, and skim along the
trees on the river's hank. The different kinds of frogs
almost stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow-sound-
ing croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament
find mourn all night long.
About two hours before daybreak you will hear the
red monkey moaning as though in deep distress; the
houtou, a solitary bird, and only found in the thickest
recesses of the forest, distinctly articulates, "houtou,
houtou," in a low and plaintive tone, an hour before
sunrise; the niaam whistles about the same hour; the
hannaquoi, pataca, and maroudi announce his near
approach to the eastern horizon, and the parrots and
parroquets confirm his arrival there.
The crickets chirp from sunset to sunrise, and often
during the day, when the weather is cloudy. The
beterouge is exceeding numerous in these extensive
wilds, and not only nihil, but beasts and birds, are tor-
mented by it. Mosquitos are very rare after you pass
tiio third island in the Demerara, and sand-flies but.
seldom appear.
Courteous reader, here thou hast the outlines of an
amazing landscape give/1 thee; thou wilt see that the
principal parts of it aire but faintly traced, some of
them scarcely visible at all, and that the shades are
wholly wanting. If thy soul partakes of the ardent
50
WANDERINGS IN
flame which the persevering Mungo Park's did, these
outlines will be enough for thee: for they will give
some idea of what a noble country this is: and if thou
hast but courage to set about giving the world a
finished picture of it, neither materials to work on, nor
colours to paint it in its true shades, will be wanting
to thee. It may appear a difficult task at a distance;
but look close at it, and it is nothing at all; provided
thou hast but a quiet mind, little more is necessary, and
the G-enius which presides over these wilds will kindly
help thee through the rest. She will allow thee to slay
the fawn, and to cut down the mountain-cabbage for thy
support, and to select from every part of her domain
whatever may be necessary for the work thou art
about; but having killed a pair of doves in order to
enable thee to give mankind a true and proper descrip-
tion of them, thou must not destroy a third through
wantonness, or to show what a. good marksman thou
art; that would only blot the picture thou art finishing,
not colour it.
Though retired from the haunts of men, and even
without a friend with thee, thou wouldst not find it
solitary. The crowing of the hannaquoi will sound in
thine ears like the daybreak town-clock; and the wren
and the thrush will join with thee in thy matin hymn
to thy Creator, to thank Him for thy night's rest.
At noon the Genius will lead thee to the troely, one
SOUTH AMERICA.
leaf of which will defend thee from both sun and rain.
And if, in the cool of the evening, thou hast been
tempted to stray too far from thy place of abode, and
art deprived of light to write down the information
thou hast collected, the firefly, which thou wilt see in
almost every bush around thee, will be thy candle.
Hold it over thy pocket-book, in any position which
thou knowest will not hurt it, and it will afford thee
ample light. And when thou hast done with it, put it
kindly back again on the next branch to thee. It will
want no other reward for its services.
When in thy hammock, should the thought of thy
little crosses and disappointments, in thy ups and
downs through life, break in upon thee, and throw thee
into a pensive mood, the owl will bear thee company.
She will tell thee that hard has been her fate too; and,
at intervals, "Whip-poor-Will" and "Willy come
go " will take up the tale of sorrow. Ovid has told
thee how the owl once boasted the human form, and
lost it for a very small offence; and were the poet
alive now, he would inform thee that "Whip-poor-
Will," and "Willy come go," are the shades of those
poor African and Indian slaves, who died worn out and
broken-hearted. They wail and cry, "Whip-poor-
Will," "Willy come go," all night long; and often
when the moon shines you see them sitting on the
green turf, near the houses of those whose ancestors
02 WANDERINGS IN
tore theni from the bosom of their helpless families,
which all probably perished through grief and want
after their support was gone.
About an hour above the rock of Saba stands the
habitation of an Indian, called Simon, on the top of a
hill. The side next the river is almost perpendicular,
and you may easily throw a stone over to the
opposite bank. Here there was an opportunity of
seeing man. in his rudest state. The Indians who
frequented this habitation, though living in the midst
of woods, bore evident marks of attention to their
persons. Their hair was neatly collected, and tied up
in a knot; their bodies fancifully painted red, and the
paint was scented with hayawa. This gave them a
gay and animated appearance. Some of them had on
necklaces, composed of the teeth of wild boars slain in
the chase; many wore rings, aDd others had an orna-
ment on the left arm, midway betwixt the shoulder
and the elbow. At the close of day they regularly
bathed in the river below; and the next morning
seemed busy in renewing the faded colours of their
faces.
One day' there came into the hut a form which
literally might be called the wild man of the woods.
On entering, he laid down a ball of wax, which he had
collected in the forest. His hammock was all ragged
and torn; and his bow, though of good wood, was
SOUTH ^MERICA.
53
without any ornament or polish; "erubu.it domino,
cnltior esse suo." His face was meagre, his looks
forbidding, and his whole appearance neglected. His
long black hair hung from his head in matted con-
fusion; nor had his body to all appearance ever been
painted. They gave him some cassava bread and
boiled fish, which he ate voraciously, and soon after
left the hut. As he went out you could observe no
traces in his countenance or demeanour which indicated
that he was in the least mindful of having been
benefited by the society he was just leaving.
The Indians said that he had neither wife, nor child,
nor friend. They had often tried to persuade him to
come and live amongst them; but all was of no avail.
He went roving on, plundering the wild bees of their
honey, and picking up the fallen nuts and fruits of
the forest. When he fell in with game, he procured
fire from two sticks, and cooked it on the spot. When
a hut happened to be in his way, he stepped in and
asked for something to eat, and then months elapsed
ere they saw him again. They did not know what had
caused him to be thus unsettled; he had been so for
years; nor did they believe that even old age itself
would change the habits of this poor, harmless,
solitary wanderer.
From Simon's, the traveller may reach the large
fall with ease in four days.
WANDE'RJN.GS IN
The first falls that he meets are merely rapids,
scarce a stone appearing above the water in the rainy
season; and those in the bed of the river barely high
enough to arrest the water's course, and by causing a
bubbling, show that they are there.
With this small change of appearance in the stream,
the stranger observes nothing new till he comes within
eight or ten miles of the great fall. Each side of the
river presents an uninterrupted range of wood, just as
it did below. All the productions found betwixt the
plantations and the rock Saba are to be met with here.
From Simon's to the great fall there are five
habitations of the Indians—two of them close to the
river's side; the other three a little way in the forest.
These habitations consist of from four to eight huts,
situated on about an acre of ground which they have
cleared from the surrounding woods. A few pappaw.
cotton, and mountain cabbage-trees are scattered round
them.
At one of these habitations a small quantity of the
wourali-poison was procured. It was in a little gourd.
The Indian who had it said that he had killed a
number of wild hogs with it and two tapirs. Appear-
ances seemed to confirm what he had said; for on one
side it had been nearly taken out to the bottom at
different times, which probably would not have been
the case had the first or second trial failed.
SOUTH AMERICA.
55
Its strength was proved on a middle-sized dog. He
was wounded in the thigh, in order that there might be
no possibility of touching a vital part. In three or four
minutes he began to be affected, smelt at every little
thing on the ground around him, and looked wistfully
at the wounded part. Soon after this he staggered,
laid himself down, and never rose more. He barked
once, though not as if in pain. His voice was low and
weak; and in a second attempt it quite failed him.
He now put his head betwixt his fore-legs, and raising
it slowly again, he fell over on his side. His eyes
immediately became fixed, and though his extremities
every now and then shot convulsively, he never showed
the least desire to raise up his head. His heart
fluttered much from the time he lay down, and at
intervals beat very strong; then stopped for a moment
or two, and then beat again; and continued faintly
beating several minutes after every other part of his
body seemed dead.
In a quarter of an hour after he had received the
poison he was quite motionless.
A few miles before you reach the great fall, and
which, indeed, is the only one which can be called a
fall, large balls of froth come floating past you. The river
appears beautifully marked with streaks of foam, and
on your nearer approach the stream is whitened all over.
At first, you behold the fall rushing down a bed of
56
WANDEBINGS IN
rocks, with a tremendous noise, divided into two foamy-
streams, which at their junction again form a small
island covered with wood. Above this island, for a
short space, there appears bat one stream all white
with froth, and fretting and boiling amongst the huge
rocks which obstruct its course.
Higher up it is seen dividing itself into a short
channel or two, and trees grow on the rocks which
caused its separation. The torrent in many places has
eaten deep into the rocks,, and split them into large
fragments by driving others against them. The trees
on the rocks are in bloom and vigour, though their
roots are half bared, and many of them bruised and
broken by the rushing waters.
This is the general appearance of the fall from the
level of the water below to where the river is smooth
and quiet above. It must be remembered that this is
during the periodical rains. Probably in the dr}r
season it puts on a very different appearance. There
is no perpendicular fall of water of any consequence
throughout it, but the dreadful roaring and rushing of
the torrent down a long, rocky, and moderately sloping
channel has a fine effect; and the stranger returns
well pleased with what he has seen. ~No animal, nor
craft of any kind, could stem this downward flood. In
a few moments the first would be killed, the second
dashed in pieces.
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58
WANDERINGS IN
There is a pretty good path, and meeting a creek
about three-quarters of the way, it eases the labour,
and twelve Indians will arrive with it in the Essequibo
in four days.
The traveller need not attend his canoe; there is a
shorter and a better way. Half an hour below Sinker-
man's he finds a little creek on the western bank of
the Denierara. After proceeding about a couple of
hundred yards up it, he leaves it, and pursues a west-
north-west direction by land for the Essequibo. The
path is good, though somewhat rugged with the roots
of trees, and here and there obstructed by fallen ones;
it extends more over level ground than otherwise.
There are a few steep ascents and descents in it, with
a little brook running at the bottom of them; but they
are easily passed over, and the fallen trees serve for a
bridge.
Tou may reach the Essequibo with ease in a day
and a half; and so matted and interwoven are the tops
of the trees above you, that the sun is not felt once all
the way, saving where the space which a newly-fallen
tree occupied lets in his rays upon you. The forest
contains an abundance of wild hogs, lobbas, acouries,
powisses, maams, maroudis, and waracabas for your
nourishment, and there are plenty of leaves to cover a
shed whenever you are inclined to sleep.
The soil has three-fourths of sand in it, till you come
SOUTH AMERICA.
within half an hour's walk of the Essequibo, where
3^ou find a red gravel and rocks. In this retired and
solitary tract, nature's garb, to all appearance, has not-
been injured by fire, nor her productions broken in
upon by the exterminating hand of man.
Here the finest green-heart grows, and wallaba,
purple-heart, siloabali, sawari, buletre, tauronira, and
mora, are met with in vast abundance, far and near,
towering up in majestic grandeur, straight as pillars*
sixty or seventy feet high, without a knot or branch.
Traveller, forget for a little while the idea thou hast
of wandering farther on, and stop and look at this grand
picture of vegetable nature; it is a reflection of the
crowd thou hast lately been in, and though a silent
monitor, it is not a less eloquent one on that account.
See that noble purple-heart before thee! Nature has
been kind to it. Not a hole, not the least oozing
from its trunk, to show that its best days are past.
Vigorous in youthful blooming beauty, it stands the
ornament of these sequestered wilds, and tacitly re-
bukes those base ones of thine own species who have
been hardy enough to deny the existence of Him who
ordered it to flourish there.
Behold that one next to it!—Hark! how the'
hammerings of the red-headed woodpecker resound
through its distempered boughs! See what a quantity
of holes he has made in it, and how its bark is stained
60
WANDERINGS IN
with the drops which trickle down from them. The
lightning, too, has blasted one side of it. Nature
looks pale and wan in its leaves, and her resources are
nearly dried up in its extremities; its sap is tainted;
a mortal sickness, slow as a consumption, and as sure
in its consequences, has long since entered its frame,
vitiating and destroying the wholesome juices there.
Step a fewjpaces aside, and cast thine eye on that
remnant of amori behind it. Best part of its branches,
once so high and ornamental, now lie on the ground in
sad confusion one upon the other, all shattered and
fungus-grown, and a prey to millions of insects, which
are busily employed in destroying them. One branch
of it still looks healthy! Will it recover? ISTo, it
cannot; nature has already run her course, and that
healthy looking branch is only as a fallacious good
symptom in him who is just about to die of a mortifi-
cation when he feels no more pain, and fancies his
distemper has left him; it is as the momentary gleam
of a wintry sun's ray close to the western horizon.—
See! while we are speaking, a gust of wind has brought
the tree to the ground, and made room for its successor.
Come farther on, and examine that ai3parently
luxuriant tauronira on thy right hand. It boasts a
verdure not its own; they are false ornaments it wears;
the bush-rope and bird-vines have clothed it from the
root to its topmost branch. The succession of fruit
SOUTH AMERICA.
<51
which it hath borne, like good cheer in the houses of
the great, has invited the birds to resort to it, and they
have disseminated beautiful, though destructive, plants
on its branches, which, like the distempers vice brings
into the human frame, rob it of all its health and
vigour; they have shortened its days, and probably
in another year they will finally kill it, long before
nature intended that it should die.
Ere thou leavest this interesting scene, look on the
ground around thee, and see what everything here
below must come to.
Behold that newly fallen wallaba! The whirlwind
has uprooted it in its prime, and it has brought down
to the ground a dozen small ones in its fall. Its bark
has already begun to drop off! And that heart of
mora close by it is fast yielding, in spite of its firm,
tough texture.
The tree which thou passedst but a little ago, and
which perhaps has lain over yonder brook for years,
can now hardly support itself; and in a few months
more it will have fallen into the water.
Put thy foot on that large trunk thou seest to the
left. It seems entire amid the surrounding fragments.
Mere outward appearance, delusive phantom of what
it once was! Tread on it, and like the fuss-ball, it
will break into dust.
Sad and silent mementoes to the giddy traveller as
62
WANDERINGS IN
he wanders on! Prostrate remnants of vegetable
nature, how incontestably ye prove what we must all
at last come to, and how plain your mouldering ruins
show that the firmest texture avails us nought when
Heaven wills that we should cease to be !—
"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind."
Cast thine eye around thee, and see the thousands
-of nature's productions. Take a view of them from
the opening seed on the surface, sending a downward
shoot, to the loftiest and the largest trees, rising up
and blooming in wild luxuriance; some side by side,
others separate; some curved and knotty, others
straight as lances, all in beautiful gradation, fulfilling*
the mandates they had received from Heaven, and
though condemned to die, still never failing to keep
up their species till time shall be no more.
Reader, canst thou not be induced to dedicate a few
1 nonths to the good of the public, and examine with
thy scientific eye the productions which the vast and
well-stored colony of Demerara presents to thee?
What an immense range of forest is there from the
rock Saba to the great fall! and what an uninterrupted
extent before thee from it to the banks of the Esse-
SOUTH AMERICA.
63
qnibo! No doubt, there is many a balsam and many a
medicinal root yet to be discovered, and many a resin,
gum, and oil yet unnoticed. Thy work would be a
pleasing one, and thou mightest make several useful
observations in it.
"Would it be thought impertinent in thee to hazard
a conjecture, that, with the resources the Government of
Demerara has, stones might be conveyed from the rock
Saba to Stabroek to stem the equinoctial tides, which
are for ever sweeping away the expensive wooden piles
around the mounds of the fort? Or would the timber-
merchant point at thee in passing by, and call thee a
descendant of La Mancha's knight, because thou main-
tainest that the stones which form the rapids might be
removed with little expense, and thus open the naviga-
tion to the woodcutter from Stabroek to the great fall?
Or wouldst thou be deemed enthusiastic or biassed,
because thou givest it as thy opinion that the climate
in these high lands is exceedingly wholesome, and the
lands themselves capable of nourishing and maintaining
any number of settlers? In thy dissertation on the
Indians, thou mightest hint, that possibly they could
be induced to help the new settlers a little; and that,
finding their labours well requited, it would be the
means of their keeping up a constant communication
with us, which probably might be the means of laying
the first stone towards their Christianity. They are
64 WANDERINGS IN
a poor, harmless, inoffensive set of people, and their
wanderings and ill-provided way of living seem more
to ask for pity from us, than to fill our heads with
thoughts that they would be hostile to us.
"What a noble field, kind reader, for thy experimental
philosophy and speculations, for thy learning, for thy
perseverance, for thy kind-heartedness, for everything
that is great and good within thee!
The accidental traveller who has journeyed on from
Stabroek to the roc.c Saba, and from thence to the banks
of the Essequibo, in pursuit of other things, as he told
thee at the beginning, with but an indifferent inter-
preter to talk to, no friend to converse with, and
totally unfit for that which he wishes thee to do, can
merely mark the outlines of the path he has trodden,
or tell thee the sounds he has heard, or faintly describe
what he has seen in the environs of his resting-places;
but if this be enough to induce thee to undertake the
journey, and give the world a description of it, he will
be amply satisfied.
It will be two days and a half from the time of
entering the path on the western bank of the Demerara
till all be ready, and the canoe fairly afloat on the
Essequibo. The new rigging it, and putting every
little thing to rights and in its proper place, cannot
well be done in less than a day.
After being night and day in the forest impervious
f
SOUTH AMERICA. 65
to the sun and moon's rays, the sudden transition to
light has a fine heart-cheering effect. Welcome as a
lost friend, the solar beam makes the frame rejoice,
and with it a thousand enlivening thoughts rush at
once on the soul, and disperse, as a vapour, every sad
and sorrowful idea, which the deep gloom had helped
to collect there. In coming out of the woods, you see
the western bank of the Essequibo before you, low
and flat. Here the river is two-thirds as broad as the
Demerara at Stabroek.
To the northward there is a hill higher than any in
the Demerara; and in the south-south-west quarter a
mountain. It is far away, and appears like a bluish
cloud in the horizon. There is not the least opening1
on either side. Hills, valleys, and lowlands, are all
linked together by a chain of forest. Ascend the
highest mountain, climb the loftiest tree, as far as the
eye can extend, whichever way it directs itself, all is
luxuriant and unbroken forest.
In about nine or ten hours from this, you get to am
Indian habitation of three huts, on the point of an
island. It is said that a Dutch post once stood here;
but there is not the smallest vestige of it remaining,
and, except that the trees appear younger than those
on the other islands, which shows that the place has
been cleared some time or other, there is no mark left
by which you can conjecture that ever this was a post,
C—54
€t> WANDERINGS IN
The many islands which yon meet with in the way,
-enliven and change the scene, by the avenues which
they make, which look like the mouths of other rivers,
-and^ break that long-extended sameness which is seen
in the Demerara.
Proceeding onwards, you get to the falls and rapids.
In the rainy season they are very tedious to pass, and
often stop your course. In the dry season, by stepping
from rock to rock, the Indians soon manage to get a
canoe over them. But when the river is swollen, as
it was in May, 1812, it is then a difficult task, and
of ten,a dangerous one too. At that time many of the
islands were overflowed, the rocks covered, and the
lower branches of the trees in the water. Sometimes
the Indians were obliged to take everything out of the
canoe, cut a passage through the branches, which hung
over into the river, and then drag up the canoe by
main force.
At one place, the falls form an oblique line quite
across the river, iinpassable to the ascending canoe,
and you are forced to have it dragged four or five hun-
dred yards by land.
It will take you five days, from the Indian habitation
on the point of the island, to where these falls and
rapids terminate.
There are no huts in the way. You must bring your
own cassava-bread along with you, hunt in the forest,
SOUTH AMERICA. 67
for your meat, and make the night's shelter for your-
self.
Here is a noble range of hills, all covered with the
finest trees, rising majestically one above the other, on
the western bank, and presenting as rich a scene as
ever the eye would wish to look on. Nothing in
vegetable nature can be conceived more charming,
grand, and luxuriant.
How the heart rejoices in viewing this beautiful
landscape! when the sky is serene, the air cool, and
the sun just sunk behind the mountain's top.
The hayawa-tree perfumes the woods around; pairs
of scarlet aras are continually crossing the river.
The niaani sends forth its plaintive note, the wren
chants its evening song. The caprimulgus wheels in
busy flight around the canoe, while "whip-poor-will"
sits on the broken stump near the water's edge, com-
plaining as the shades of night set in.
A little before you pass the last of these rapids two
immense rocks appear, nearly on the summit of one
of the many hills which form this far-extending range
where it begins to fall oh2 gradually to the south.
They look like two ancient stately towers of some
Gothic potentate, rearing their heads above the sur-
rounding trees. What with their situation and their
shape together, they strike the beholder with an idea
of antiquated grandeur which he will never forget.
CS WANDERINGS IN
He may travel far and near and see nothing like them.
On looking at them through a glass, the summit of the
southern one appeared crowned with bushes. The one
to the north was quite bare. The Indians have it from
their ancestors that they are the abode of an evil
genius, and they pass in the river below with a re-
verential awe.
In about seven hours from these stupendous sons of
the hill, you leave the Essequibo, and enter the river
Apourapoura, which falls into it from the south. The
Apourapoura is nearly one-third the size of the Derne-
rara at Stabroek. For two days you see nothing but
level ground, richly clothed in timber. Ton leave the
Siparouni to the right hand, and on the third day come
to a little hill. The Indians have cleared about an
acre of ground on if , and erected a temporary shed. If
it be not intended for provision-ground a]one, perhaps
the next white man who travels through these remote
wilds will find an Indian settlement here. ,
Two days after leaving this, you get to a rising
ground on the western bank, where stands a single
hut; an4 about half a mile in the forest there are a
few more; some of them square, and some" round with
spiral roofs.
Here the fish called paeon is very plentiful: it is
perhaps the fattest and most delicious fish in G-uiana.
It do( not take the hook, but the Indians decoy it to
SOUTH AMERICA.
69
the surface of the water by means of the seeds of the
crabwood-tree, and then shoot it with an arrow.
You are now within the borders of Macoushia, in-
habited by a different tribe of people, called Macoushi
Indians; uncommonly dexterous in the use of the blow-
pipe, and famous for their skill in preparing the
deadly vegetable poison commonly called wourali.
It is from this country that those beautiful paro-
quets named kessi-kessi are procured. Here the
crystal mountains are found; and here the three dif-
ferent species of the ara are seen in great abundance.
Here, too, grows the tree from which the gum-elastic
is got; it is large, and as tall as any in the forest.
The wood has much the appearance of sycamore. The
gum is contained in the bark: when that is cut through
it oozes out very freely: it is quite white, and looks
as rich as cream: it hardens almost immediately as it
issues from the tree; so that it is very easy to collect
a ball, by forming the juice into a globular shape as
fast as it comes out; it becomes nearly black by being
exposed to the air, and is real Indian rubber without
undergoing any other process.
The elegant crested bird called cock of the rock,
admirably described by Buffon, is a native of the
woody mountains of Macoushia. In the daytinie he
retires amongst the darkest rocks, and only comes out
to feed a little before sunrise, and at sunset; he is of
70
WANDERINGS IN
a gloomy disposition, and, like the houtou, never
associates with the other birds of the forest.
The Indians in the just-mentioned settlement seemed
to depend more on the wourali-poison for killing then-
game than upon anything else. They had only one
gun, and it appeared rusty and neglected; but their
poisoned weapons were in fine order. Their blow-
pipes hung from the roof of the hut, carefully sus-
pended by a silk-grass cord; and on taking a nearer
view of them, no dust seemed to have collected there,
nor had the spider spun the smallest web on them;
which showed that they were in constant use. The
quivers were close by them, with the jav>r-bone of the
fish pirai tied by a string to their brim, and a small
wicker-basket of wild cotton, which hung down to the
centre; they were nearly full of poisoned arrows. It
was with difficulty these Indians could be persuaded to
part with any of the wourali-poison, though a good
price was offered for it; they gave me to understand
that it was powder and shot to them, and very difficult
to be procured.
On the second day after leaving the settlement, in
passing along, the Indians show you a place where
once a white man lived. His retiring so far from
those of his own colour and acquaintance seemed to
carry something extraordinary along with it, and
raised a desire to know what could have induced him
r
SOUTH AMERICA. 71
to do so. It seems lie had been unsuccessful, and that
his creditors had treated him with as little mercy as
the strong generally shoAY to the weak. Seeing his
endeavours daily frustrated, and his best intentions of
no avail, and fearing that when they had taken all he
had they would probably take his liberty too, he
thought the world would not be hard-hearted enough
to condemn him for retiring from the evils which
pressed so heavily on him, and which he had done all
that an honest man could do to ward off:. He left his
creditors to talk of him as they thought fit, and
bidding adieu for ever to the place in which he had
once seen better times, he penetrated thus far into
those remote and gloomy wilds, and ended his days
here.
According to the new map of South America, Lake
Parima, or the White Sea, ought to be within three
or four days' walk from this place. On asking the
Indians whether there was such a place or not, and
describing that the water was fresh and good to drinks
an old Indian, who appeared to be about sixty, said;
that there was such a place, and that he had been:
there. This information would have been satisfactory
in some degree, had not the Indians carried the point
a little too far. It is very large, said another Indian,
and ships come to it. Now these unfortunate ships
were the very things which were not wanted; had he
WANDERINGS IN
1
kept them out, it might have done, but his introducing
them was sadly against the lake. Thus you must
either suppose that the old savage and his companion
had a confused idea of the thing, and that probably
the Lake Parima they talked of was the Amazons, not
far from the city of Para, or that it was their intention
to deceive you. Ton ought to be cautious in giving
credit to their stories, otherwise you will be apt to be
led astray.
Many a ridiculous thing concerning the interior of
Guiana has been propagated and received as true,
merely because six or seven Indians, questioned sepa-
rately, have agreed in their narrative.
Ask those who live high up in the Demerara, and
they will, every one of them, tell you that there is a
:nation of Indians with long tails; that they are very
malicious, cruel and ill-natured; and that the Portu-
guese have been obliged to stop them off in a certain
river, to prevent their depredations. They have also
dreadful stories concerning a horrible beast, called
the watermamma, which, when it happens to take a
spite against a canoe, rises out of the river, and in the
most unrelenting manner possible carries both canoe
and Indians down to the bottom with it, and there
destroys them. Ludicrous extravagances; pleasing to
those fond of the marvellous, and excellent matter for
a distempered brain.
r
SOTJTH AMEBICA. 7>>
The misinformed and timid court of policy in De-
merara was made the dupe of a savage, who came
down the Essequibo, and gave himself out as king of a
mighty tribe. This naked wild man of the woods
seemed to hold the said court in tolerable contempt,
and demanded immense supplies, all which he got;
and moreover, some time after, an invitation to come
down the ensuing year for more, which he took care
not to forget.
This noisy chieftain boasted so much of his dynasty
and domain, that the Government was induced to send
up an expedition into his territories to see if he had
spoken the truth, and nothing but the truth. It ap-
peared, however, that his palace was nothing but a
hut, the monarch a needy savage, the heir-apparent
nothing to inherit but his father's club and bow and
arrows, and his officers of state wild and uncultivated
as the forests through which they strayed.
There was nothing in the hut of this savage, saving
the presents he had received from Government, but
what was barely sufficient to support existence; no-
thing that indicated a power to collect a hostile force;
nothing that showed the least progress towards civilisa-
tion. All was rude and barbarous in the extreme*
expressive of the utmost poverty and a scanty popula-
tion.
Ton may travel six or seven days without seeing a
74
WANDERINGS IN
1
hut, and when you reach a settlement it seldom con-
tains more than ten.
The further yon advance into the interior the more
you are convinced that it is thinly inhabited.
The day after posing the place where the white
man lived you see a creek on the left hand, and shortly
after the path to the open country. Here you drag
the cauoe up into the forest, and leave it there. Your
baggage must now be carried by the Indians. The
creek you passed in the river intersects the path to the
next settlement: a large mora has fallen across it, and
unakes an excellent bridge. After walking an hour
and a half you come to the edge of the forest, and a
-savanna unfolds itself to the view.
The finest park that England boasts falls far short
of this delightful scene. There are about two thou-
sand acres of grass, with here and there a clump of
trees, and a few bushes and single trees scattered up
and down by the hand of Nature. The ground is
neither hilly nor level, but diversified with moderate
rises and falls, so gently running into one another
that the eye cannot distinguish where they begin, nor
where they end, while the distant black rocks have
the appearance of a herd at rest. Nearly in the
middle there is an eminence, which falls off gradually
on every side; and on this the Indians have erected
their huts.
V
SOUTH AMERICA. 75
To the northward of theru the forest forms a
circle, as though it had been done by art; to the east-
ward it hangs in festoons; and to the south and "west
it rushes in abruptly, disclosing a new scene behind it
at every step as you advance along.
This beautiful park of nature is quite surrounded
by lofty hills, all arrayed in superbest garb of trees;
some in the form of pyramids, others like sugar-loaves
towering one above the other; some rounded off, and
others as though they had lost their apex. Here two
hills rise up in spiral summits, and the wooded line
of communication betwixt them sinks so gradually that
it forms a crescent; and there the ridges of others
resemble the waves of an agitated sea. Beyond these
appear others, and others past them; and others still
farther on, till they can scarcely be distinguished from
the clouds.
There are no sand-flies, nor bete-rouge, nor mos-
quitos in this pretty spot. The fire-flies during the
night vie in numbers and brightness with the stars in
the firmament above: the air is i^ure, and the north-
east breeze blows a refreshing gale throughout the day.
Here the white-crested maroudi, which is never found
in the Demerara, is pretty plentiful; and here grows
the tree which produces the moran, sometimes called
balsam capivi.
Tour route lies south from this place; and at the
76 WANDERINGS IN
extremity of tlie savanna yon enter the forest, and
journey along a winding path at the foot of a hill.
There is no habitation within this day's walk. The
traveller, as usual, must sleep in the forest. The path
is not so good the following day. The hills over
which it lies are rock)^ steep, and rugged, and the
spaces betwixt them swarapy, and mostly knee-deep in
water. After eight hours' walk you find two or three
Indian huts, surrounded by the forest; and in little
more than half an hour from these you come to ten or
twelve others, where you pass the night. They are
prettily situated at the entrance into a savanna. The
eastern and western hills are still covered with wood;
but on looking to the south-west quarter you perceive
it begins to die away. In these forests you may find
plenty of the trees which yield the sweet-smelling
resin called acaiari, and which, when pounded and
burnt on charcoal, gives a delightful fragrance.
From hence you proceed, in a south-west direction,
through a long swampy savanna. Some of the hills
which border on it have nothing but a thin coarse-
grass and huge stones on them; others, quite wooded;
others with their summits crowned, and their base
quite bare; and others, again, with their summits
bare, and their base in thickest wood.
Half of this day's march is in water, nearly up to
the knees. There are four creeks to pass; one of
r
SOUTH AMERICA. 77
them lias a fallen tree across it. You must make your
own bridge across the other three. Probably, were the
truth known, these apparently four creeks are only the
meanders of one.
The jabiru, the largest bird in G-uiana, feeds in the
marshy savanna through which you have just passed.
He is wary and shy, and will not allow you to get
within gun-shot of him.
You sleep this night in the forest, and reach an
Indian settlement about three o'clock the next evening,
after walking one-third of the way through wet and
miry ground.
But, bad as the walking is through it, it is easier
than where you cross over the bare hills, where you have
to tread on sharp stones, most of them lying edgewise.
The ground gone over these two last days seems
condemned to perpetual solitude and silence. There
was not one four-footed animal to be seen, nor even
the marks of one. It would have been as silent as
midnight, and all as still and unmoved as a monument
had not the jabiru in the marsh, and a few vultures
soaring over the mountain's top, shown that it was not
quite deserted by animated nature. There were no
insects, except one kind of fly about one-fourth the size
of the common house-fly. It bit cruelly, and was much
more tormenting than the mosquito on the sea-coast.
This seems to be the native country of the arrow-
78 WANDERINGS IN
root. Wherever you passed through a patch of wood
in a low situation, there you found it growing
luxuriantly.
The Indian place you are now at is not the proper
place to have come to in order to reach the Portuguese
frontiers. You have advanced too much to the west-
ward. But there was no alternative. The ground
betwixt you and another small settlement (which was
the right place to have gone to) was overflowed; and
thus, instead of proceeding southward, you were
obliged to wind along the foot of the western hills,
quite out of your way.
But the grand landscape this place affords makes
you ample amends for the time you have spent in
reaching it. It would require great descriptive powers
to give a proper idea of the situation these people have
chosen for their dwelling.
The hill they are on is steep and high, and full of
immense rocks. The huts are not all in one place, but
dispersed wherever they have found a place level
enough for a lodgment. Before you ascend the hill
you see at intervals an acre or two of wood, then an
open space, with a few huts on it, then wood again,
and then an open space, and so on, till the inter-
vening of the western hills, higher and steeper still,
and crowded with trees of the loveliest shades, closes
the enchanting scene.
SOUTH AMERICA.
At the "base of this hill stretches an immense plain,
which appears to the eye, on this elevated spot, as
level as a bowling-green. The mountains on the
other side are piled one upon the other in romantic-
forms, and gradually retire, till they are indiscernible
from the clouds in which they are involved. To the
south-south-west this far-extending plain is lost in the
horizon. The trees on it, which look like islands or
the ocean, add greatly to the beauty of the landscape;
while the rivulet's course is marked out by the seta-
trees which follow its meanders.
Not being able to pursue the direct course from
hence to the next Indian habitation on account of the
floods of water which fall at this time of the year, you
take a circuit westerly along the mountain's foot.
At last a large and deep creek stops your progress:
it is wide and rapid, and its banks very steep. There
is neither curial nor canoe, nor purple-heart tree in the
neighbourhood to make a wood-skin to carry you over,
so that you are obliged to swim across; and by the
time you have formed a kind of raft, composed of
boughs of trees and coarse grass, to ferry over your
baggage, the day will be too far spent to think of
proceeding. Tou must be very cautious before you
venture to swim across this creek, for the alligators
are numerous, and near twenty feet long. On the
present occasion the Indians took uncommon pre-
in,
St
SO WANDERINGS IN
f
cautious lest they should be devoured by this cruel
aud Yoracious reptile. They cut long sticks, and
examined closely the side of the creek for half a mile
above aud below the place where it was to be crossed;
and as soon as the boldest had swum over, he did the
same on the other side, and then all followed.
After passing the night on the opposite bank, which
is well wooded, it is a brisk walk of nine hours before
you reach four Indian huts, on a rising ground a few
hundred paces from a little brook, whose banks are
covered over with coucourite and seta trees.
This is the place you ought to have come to two
days ago had the water permitted you. In crossing
the plain at the most advantageous place you are
above ankle-deep in water for three hours; the re-
mainder of the way is dry, the ground gently rising.
As the lower parts of this spacious plain put on some-
what the appearance of a lake during the periodical
rains, it is not improbable but that this is the place
which hath given rise to the supposed existence of the
famed Lake Parima, or El Dorado; but this is mere
conjecture.
A few deer are feeding on the coarse rough grass of
this far-extending plain; they keep at a distance from
you, and are continually on the look-out.
T3ie spur-winged plover, and a species of the
■curlew, black, with a white bar across the wings,
SOUTH AMEBICA. ol
nearly as large again as the scarlet curlew on the
sea-coast, frequently rise before you. Here, too, the
Moscovy cluck is numerous; and large flocks of two
other kinds wheel round you as you pass on, but keep
out of gun-shot. The milk-white egrets, and jabirus,
are distinguished at a great distance; and in the seta
and coucourite trees you may observe flocks of scarlet
and blue aras feeding on the seeds.
It is to these trees that the largest sort of toucan
resorts. He is remarkable by a large black spot on
the point of his fine yeHow bill. He is very scarce in
Demerara, and never seen except near the sea-coast.
The ants' nests have a singular appearance on this
plain. They are in vast abundance on those parts of
it free from water, and are formed of an exceeding
hard yellow clay. They rise eight or ten feet from the
ground in a spiral form, impenetrable to the rain, and
strong enough to defy the severest tornado.
The wourali-poison, procured in these last-mentioned
huts, seemed very good, and proved afterwards to be
very strong.
There are now no more Indian settlements betwixt
you and the Portuguese frontiers. If you wish to
visit their fort, it would be advisable to send an Indian
with a letter from hence, and wait his return. On the
present occasion a very fortunate circumstan.ee oc-
curred. The Portuguese commander had sent some
82 WANDERINGS IN
Indians and soldiers to build a canoe, not far from
this settlement; they had just finished it, and those
who did not stay with it had stopped here on their
return.
The soldier who commanded the rest, said he, durst
not, upon any account, convey a stranger to the fort;
but he added, as there were two canoes, one of them
might be despatched with a letter, and then we could
proceed slowly on in the other.
About three hours from this settlement there is a
river called Pirarara; and here the soldiers had left
their canoes while they were making the new one.
From the Pirarara you get into the river Maou, and
then into the Tacatou; and just where the Tacatou
falls into the Rio Branco, there stands the Portuguese
frontier fort, called Fort St. Joachim. From the time
of embarking in the river Pirarara, it takes you four
days before you reach this fort.
There was nothing very remarkable in passing down
these rivers. It is an open country, producing a
coarse grass, and interspersed with clumps of trees.
The banks have some wood on them, but it appears
stunted and crooked, like that on the bleak hills in
England.
The tapir frequently plunged into the river; he
was by no means shy, and it was easy to get a shot at
him on land. The kessi-kessi paroquets were in
r
SOUTH AMEE.ICA. 83
great abundance; and the fine scarlet ara innumer-
able in the coueourite trees at a distance from the
river's bank. In the Tacatou was seen the troupiale.
It was charming to hear the sweet and plaintive notes
of this pretty songster of the wilds. The Portuguese
call it the nightingale of Guiana.
Towards the close of the fourth evening, the canoe,
which had been sent on with a letter, met us with the
commander's answer. During its absence, the nights
had been cold and stormy, the rain had fallen in
torrents, the days cloudy, and there was no sun to
dry the wet hammocks. Exposed thus, day and night,
to the chilling blast and pelting shower, strength of
constitution at last failed, and a severe fever came on.
The commander's answer was very polite. He re-
marked, he regretted much to say that he had re-
ceived orders to allow no stranger to enter the frontier,
and this being the case, he hoped I would not con-
sider him as uncivil. "However," continued he, "I
have ordered the soldier to land you at a certain dis-
tance from the fort, where we can consult together/'
We had now arrived at the place, and the canoe
which brought the letter returned to the fort, to tell
the commander I had fallen sick.
The sun had not risen above an hour the morning
after when the Portuguese officer came to the spot
where we had landed the preceding evening. He was
84 WANDERINGS IN
tall and spare, and appeared to be from fifty to fifty-
five years old; and, though thirty years of service
under an equatorial sun had burnt and shrivelled up
his face., still there was something in it so inexpres-
sibly affable and kind, that it set you immediately at
your ease. He came close up to the hammock, and
taking hold of my wrist to feel the pulse, "I am sorry,
sir," said he, ''to see that the fever has taken such
hold of you. You shall go directly with me/' con-
tinued he, <cto the fort; and though we have no
doctor there, I trust," added he, "we shall soon bring
you about again. The orders I have received for-
bidding the admission of strangers were never in-
tended to be put in force against a sick English
gentleman."
As the canoe was j)roceeding slowly down the river
towards the fort, the commander asked, with much
more interest than a question in ordinary conversation
is asked, where was I on the night of the first of May?
On telling him that I was at an Iudian settlement a
little below the great fall in the Demerara, and that
a strange and sudden noise had alarmed all the
Indians, he said the same astonishing noise had
roused every man in Fort St. Joachim, and that they
remained under arms till morning. He observed
that he had been quite at a loss to form any idea
what could have caused the noise; but now learning
f
SOUTH AMERICA, §5
that the same noise had been heard at the same
time far away from the Rio Branco, it struck him
there must have been an earthquake somewhere or
other.
Good nourishment and rest, and the unwearied
attention and kindness of the Portuguese commander,
stopped the progress of the fever, and enabled me to
walk about in six days.
Fort St. Joachim was built about five-and-forty
years ago, under the apprehension, it is said, that the
Spaniards were coming from the Hao Negro to settle
there. It has been much neglected; the Hoods of
water have carried away the gate, and destroyed the
wall on each side of it; but the present commander is
putting it into thorough repair. When finished, it
will mount six nine- and six twelve-pounders.
In a straight line with the fort, and within a few
yards of the river, stand the commander's house, the
barracks, the chapel, the father confessor's house, and
two others, all at little intervals from each other; and
these are the only buildings at Fort St. Joachim.
The neighbouring extensive plains afford good pas-
turage for a fine breed of cattle, and the Portuguese
make enough of butter and cheese for their own con-
sumption.
On asking the old officer if there were such a place
as Lake Parima, or Bl Dorado, he replied, he looked
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WANDERINGS IN
upon it as imaginary altogether. "I have been above
forty years," added he, "in Portuguese Guiana, but
have never yet met with anybody who has seen the
lake."
So much for Lake Parima, or El Dorado, or the
White Sea. Its existence at best seems doubtful;
some affirm that there is such a place, and others
deny it.
"Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est."
Having now reached the Portuguese inland frontier,
and collected a sufficient quantity of the wourali-
poison, nothing remains but to give a brief account
of its composition, its effects, its uses, and its sup-
posed antidotes.
It has been already remarked that in the extensive
wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, far away from any
European settlement, there is a tribe of Indians who
are known by the name of Macoushi.
Though the wourali-poison is used by all the South
American savages betwixt the Amazons and the Oroo-
noque, still this tribe makes it stronger than any of
the rest. The Indians in the vicinity of the Rio
Negro are aware of this, and come to the Macoushi
country to purchase it.
Much has been said concerning this fatal and ex-
traordinary poison. Some have affirmed that its effecte
r
SOUTH AMERICA. 87
are almost instantaneous, provided the minutest par-
ticle of it mixes with the blood; and others again
have maintained that it is not strong enough to Trill
an animal of the size and strength of a man. The
first have erred by lending a too willing ear to the
marvellous, and believing assertions without sufficient
proof. The following short story points out the ne-
cessity of a cautious examination:—
One day, on asking an Indian if he thought the
poison would kill a man, he replied that they always
go to battle with it; that he was standing by when an
Indian was shot with a poisoned arrow, and that he
expired almost immediately. Not wishing to dispute
this apparently satisfactory information, the subject
was dropped. However, about an hour after, having
purposely asked him in what part of the body the
said Indian was wounded, he answered without hesi-
tation that the arrow entered betwixt his shoulders,
and passed quite through his heart. Was it the
weapon, or the strength of the poison, that brought
on immediate dissolution in this case? Of course
the weapon.
The second have been misled by disappointment,
caused by neglect in keeping the poisoned arrows, or
by not knowing how to use them, or by trying inferior
poison. If the arrows are not kept dry, the poison
loses its strength; and in wet or damp weather it
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WANDERINGS IN
1
turns mouldy, and becomes quite soft. In shooting
an arrow in this state, upon examining the place where
it has entered, it will be observed that, though the
arrow has penetrated deep into the flesh, still by far
the greatest part of the poison has shrunk back, and
thus, instead of entering with the arrow, it has re-
mained collected at the mouth of the wound. In this
case the arrow might as well tw^ have been poisoned.
Probably, it was to this that a gentleman, some time
ago, owed his disappointment, when he tried the
poison on a horse in the town of Stabroek, the capital
of Demerara; the horse never betrayed the least
symptom of being affected by it.
"Wishful to obtain the best information concerning
this poison, and as repeated inquiries, in lieu of dissi-
pating the surrounding shade, did but tend more and
more to darken the little light that existed, I deter-
mined to penetrate into the country where the
poisonous ingredients grow, where this pernicious
composition is prepared, and where it is constantly
used. Success attended the adventure; and the in-
formation acquired made amends for one hundred and
twenty days passed in the solitudes of Guiana, and
afforded a balm to the wounds aud bruises which
every traveller must expect to receive who wanders-
through a thorny and obstructed path.
Thou must not, courteous reader, expect a disserta-
7
SOUTH AMERICA. 89
tion on the manner in which the wonrali-poison operates
on the system; a treatise has been already written
on the subject; and, after all, there is probably still
reason to doubt. It is supposed to affect the nervous
system, and thus destroy the vital functions; it is
also said to be perfectly harmless, provided it does
not touch the blood. However, this is certain, when
a sufficient quantity of it enters the blood, death is the
inevitable consequence; but there is no alteration in
the colour of the blood, and both the blood and flesh
may be eaten with safety.
All that thou wilt find here is a concise, unadorned
account of the wourali-poison. It may be of service
to thee some time or other, shouldst thou ever travel
through the wilds where it is used. Neither attribute
to cruelty, nor to a want of feeling for the sufferings
of the inferior animals, the ensuing experiments. The
larger animals were destroyed in order to have proof
positive of the strength of a poison which hath
hitherto been doubted: and the smaller ones were
killed with the hope of substantiating that which has
commonly been supposed to be an antidote.
It makes a pitying heart ache to see a poor creature
in distress and pain; and too often has the compas-
sionate traveller occasion to heave a sigh as he
journeys on. However, here, though the kind-hearted
will be sorry to read of an unoffending animal doomed
90 WANDERINGS IN
to death in order to satisfy a doubt, still it will be a
relief to know that the victim was not tortured. The
wourali-poison destroys life's action so gently, that
the victim appears to be in no pain whatever; and
probably, were the truth known, it feels none,
saving the momentary smart at the time the arrow
enters.
A day or two before the Macoushi Indian prepares
his poison, he goes into the forest in quest of the ingre-
dients. A vine grows in these wilds, which is called
wourali. It is from this that the poison takes its
name, and it is the principal ingredient. When he
has procured enough of this, he digs up a root of a
very bitter taste, ties them together, and then looks
about for two kinds of bulbous plants, which contain a
green and glutinous juice. He fills a little quake,
which he carries on his back, with the stalks of these;
and, lastly, ranges up and down till he finds two
species of ants. One of them is very large and
black, and so venomous that its sting produces a
fever; it is most commonly to be met with on the
ground. The other is a little red ant, which stings
like a nettle, and generally has its nest under the leaf
of a shrub. After obtaining these, he has no more
need to range the forest.
A quantity of the strongest Indian pepper is used;
but this he has already planted round his hut. The
SOUTH AMERICA. 91
pounded fangs of the labarri snake, and those of the
counacouchi, are likewise added. These he commonly
has in store; for when he kills a snake, he generally
extracts the fangs, and keeps them by him.
Haying thus found the necessary ingredients, he
scrapes the wourali vine and bitter root into thin
shavings, and puts them into a kind of colqgader made
of leaves; this he holds over an earthen pot, and
pours water on the shavings: the liquor which comes
through has the appearance of coffee. When a suffi-
cient quantity has been procured, the shavings are
thrown aside. He then bruises the bulbous stalks
and squeezes a proportionate quantity of their juice
through his hands into the pot. Lastly, the snakes'
fangs, ants, and pepper are bruised, and thrown into
it. It is then placed on a slow fire, and as it boils
more of the juice of the wourali is added, according
as it may be found necessary, and the scum is taken
on2 with a leaf: it remains on the fire till reduced to
a thick syrup of a deep brown colour. As soon as
it has arrived at this state, a few arrows are poisoned
with it to try its strength. If it answers the expecta-
tions, it is poured out into a calabash, or little pot of
Indian manufacture, which is carefully covered with
a couple of leaves, and over them a piece of deer s
skin, tied round with a cord. They keep it in the
most dry part of the hut; and from time to

92 WANDERINGS IN
suspend it oyer the fire, to counteract the effects of
dampness.
The act of x^reparing this poison is not considered
as a common one: the savage may shape his bow,
fasten the barb on the point of his arrow, and make
his other implements of destruction, either lying in
his hammock, or in the midst of his family; but if he
has to prepare the wourali-poison, many precautions
are supposed to be necessary.
The women and young girls are not allowed to be
present, lest the yahahou, or evil sx>irit, should do
them harm. The shed under which it has been boiled
has been x>i'onounced polluted and abandoned ever
after. He who makes the poison must eat nothing
that morning, and must continue fasting as long as
the operation lasts. The pot in which it is boiled
must be a new one, and must never have held anything
before, otherwise the poison would be deficient in
strength: add to this that the operator must take par-
ticular care not to expose himself to the vapour which
arises from it while on the fire.
Though this and other j>recautions are taken, such
as frequently washing the face and hands, still the
Indians think that it affects the health; and the
operator either is, or, what is more probable, supposes
himself to be, sick for some days after.
^^^^^Dhus it appears that the making the wourali-poison
SOUTH AMERICA.
93
is considered as a gloomy and mysterious operation;
and it would seem that they imagine it affects others
as well as him who boils it; for an Indian agreed one
evening to make some for me, but the next morning he
declined having anything to do with it, alleging that
his wife was with child!
Here it might be asked, are all the ingredients
just mentioned necessaiy, in order to produce the
wourali-pdison? Though our opinions and conjec-
tures may militate against the absolute necessity of
some of them, still it would be hardly fair to pro-
nounce them added by the hand of superstition, till
proof positive can be obtained.
We might argue on the subject, and, by bringing
forward instances of Indian superstition, draw our
conclusion by inference, and still remain in doubt on
this head. You know superstition to be the offspring
of ignorance, and of course that it takes up its abode
amongst the rudest tribes of uncivilised man. It even
too often resides with man in his more enlightened
state.
The Augustan age furnishes numerous examples.
A bone snatched from the jaws of a fasting bitch, and
a feather from the wing of a night-owl,—" ossa ab ore
rapta jejuni cards, iDluniamque nocturnae strigis,"—
were necessary for Canidia's incantations. And in
aftertimes, Parson Evans, the "Welshmanwas treated
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WANDERINGS IN
most ungenteelly by an enraged spirit, solely because
he had forgotten a fumigation in his witch-work.
If, then, enlightened man lets his better sense give
way, and believes, or allows himself to be persuaded,
that certain substances and actions, in reality of no
avail, possess a virtue which renders them useful in
producing the wished-for effect; may not the wild,
untaught, unenlightened savage of Guiana, add an
ingredient which, on account of the harm it does him,
he fancies may be useful in the perfection of his poison,
though, in fact, it be of no use at all? If a bone
snatched from the jaws of a fasting bitch be thought
necessary in incantation; or if witchcraft have re-
course to the raiment of the owl, because it resorts to
the tombs and mausoleums of the dead, and wails and
hovers about at the time that the rest of animated
nature sleeps; certainly the savage may imagine that
the ants, whose sting causes a fever, and the teeth of
the labarri and counacouchi snakes, which convey
death in a very short space of time, are essentially
necessary in the composition of his poison; and being
once impressed with this idea, he will add them every
time he makes the poison, and transmit the absolute
use of them to his posterity. The question to be
answered seems not to be if it is natural for the
Indians to mix these ingredients, but if they are
essential to make the poison.
SOUTH AMERICA.
95
So mucli for the preparing of this vegetable essence
—terrible importer of death into whatever animal it
enters. Let us now see how it is used; let us examine
the weapons which bear it to its destination, and take
a view of the j)Oor victim, from the time he receives
his wound till death comes to his relief.
When a native of Maeoushia goes in quest of fea-
thered game or other birds, he seldom carries his bow
and arrows. It is the blow-pipe he then uses. This
extraordinary tube of death is, perhaps, one of the
greatest natural curiosities of G-uiana. It is not
found in the country of the Macoushi. Those Indians
tell you that it g^jws to the south-west of them, in the
wilds which extend betwixt them and the Rio Negro.
The reed must grow to an amazing length, as the
part the Indians use is from ten to eleven feet long,
and no tapering can be perceived in it, one end being
as thick as the other. It is of a bright yellow colour,
perfectly smooth both inside and out. It grows hol-
low; nor is there the least appearance of a knot or
joint throughout the whole extent. The natives call
it ourah. This, of itself, is too slender to answer
the end of a blow-pipe; but there is a species of
palma, larger and stronger, and common in G-uiana,
and this the Indians make use of as a case, in which
they put the ourah. It is brown, susceptible of a fine
polish, and appears as if it had joints five or six
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WANDERINGS IN
inches from each other. It is called samourah, and
the pul]) inside is easily extracted, by steeping it for
a few days in water.
Thus the onrah and samourah, one within the-
other, form the "blow-pipe of Guiana. The end which
is applied to the mouth is tied round with a small
silk-grass cord, to prevent its splitting; and the other
end, which is apt to strike against the ground, is
secured by the seed of the acuero fruit, cut horizon-
tally through the middle, with a hole made in the end,
through which is put the extremity of the blow-pipe.
It is fastened on with string on the outside, and the
inside is filled up with wild bees'-wax.
The arrow is from nine to ten inches long. It is
made out of the leaf of a species of palm-tree, called
coucourite, hard and brittle, and pointed as sharp as a
needle. About an inch of the pointed end is poisoned.
The other end is burnt to make it still harder, and
wild cotton is put round it for about an inch and
a half. It requires considerable practice to put on this
cotton well. It must just be large enough to fit the
hollow of the tube, and taper oif to nothing down-
wards. They tie it on with a thread of the silk-grass,
to prevent its slipping oft' the arrow.
The Indians have shown ingenuity in making a
quiver to hold the arrows. It will contain from
five to six hundred. It is generally from twelve to-
SOUTH AMERICA.
97
fourteen inches long, and in shape resembles a dice-box
used at backgammon. The inside is prettily done in
basket-work, with wood not unlike bamboo, and the
outside has a coat of wax. The coyer is all of one
piece, formed out of the skin of the tapir. Hound the
centre there is fastened a loop, large enough to admit
the arm and shoulder, from which it hangs when used.
To the rim is tied a little bunch of silk-grass, and half
of the jawbone of the fish called pirai, with which
the Indian scrapes the point of his arrow.
Before he puts the arrows into the quiver, he links
them together by two strings of cotton, one string at
each end, and then folds them round a stick, which is
nearly the length of the quiver. The end of the stick,
which is uppermost, is guarded by two little pieces of
wood crosswise, with a hoop round their extremities,
which appears something like a wheel; and this saves
the hand from being wounded when the quiver is re-
versed in order to let the bunch of arrows drop out.
There is also attached to the quiver a little kind of
basket, to hold the wild cotton, which is put on the
blunt end of the arrow. With a quiver of poisoned
arrows slung over his shoulder, and with his blowpipe
in his hand, in the same position as a soldier carries his
musket, see the Macoushi Indian advancing towards
the forest in quest of powises, maroudis, waracabas,
and other feathered game.
D—54 :: • :# #!
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WANDERINGS IN
These generally sit high up in the tall and tufted
trees, but still are not out of the Indian's reach; for
his blowpipe, at its greatest elevation, will send an
arrow three hundred feet. Silent as midnight he
steals under them, and so cautiously does he tread the
ground that the fallen leaves rustle not beneath his
feet. His ears are open to the least sound, while his
eye, keen as that of the lynx, is employed in finding-
out the game in the thickest shade. Often he imitates
tsteir cry, and decoys them from tree to tree, till they
are within range of his tube. Then taking a poisoned
arrow from his quiver, he puts it in the blowpipe, and
collects his breath for the fatal puff.
About two feet from the end through which he
blows there are fastened two teeth of the acouri, and
these serve him for a sight. Silent and swift the
arrow flies, and seldom fails to pierce the object at
which it is sent. Sometimes the wounded bird remains
in the same tree where it was shot, and in three
minutes falls down at the Indian's feet. Should he
take wing, his flight is of short duration, and the
Indian, following the direction he has gone, is sure to
find him dead.
It is natural to imagine that, when a slight wound
only is inflicted, the game will make its escape. Far
otherwise; the wourali-poison almost instantaneously
mixes with blood or water, so that if you wet your
SOUTH AMERICA.
99
finger, and dash it along the poisoned arrow in the
quickest manner possible, you are sure to carry off
some of the poison. Though three minutes generally
elapse before the convulsions come on in the wounded
bird, still a stupor evidently takes place sooner, and
this stupor manifests itself by an apparent unwilling-
ness in the bird to move. This was very visible in a
dying fowl.
Having procured a healthy full-grown one, a short
piece of a poisoned blowpipe arrow was broken off
and run up into its thigh, as near as possible betwixt
the skin and the flesh, in order that it might not be
incommoded by the wound. For the first minute it
walked about, but walked very slowly, and did not
appear the least agitated. During the second minute
it stood still, and began to peck the ground; and ere
half another had elapsed, it frequently opened and
shut its mouth. The tail had now dropped, and the
wings almost touched the ground. By the termination
of the third minute, it had sat down, scarce able to
support its head, which nodded, and then recovered
itself, and then nodded again, lower and lower every
time, like that of a weary traveller slumbering in an
erect position; the eyes alternately o^qr and shut.
The fourth minute brought on convulsions, and life
and the fifth terminated together.
The flesh of the game is not in the least injured by
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WANDERINGS IN
the poison, nor does it appear to corrupt sooner than
that killed by the gam or knife. The body of this
fowl was kept for sixteen hours, in a climate damp and
rainy, and within seven degrees of the equator; at the
end of which time it had contracted no bad smell what-
ever, and there were no symptoms of putrefaction,
saving that, just round the wound, the flesh appeared
somewhat discoloured.
The Indian, on his return home, carefully suspends
his blowpipe from the top of his spiral roof; seldom
placing it in an oblique position, lest it should receive
a cast.
Here let the blowpipe remain suspended, while you
take a view of the arms which are made to slay the
larger beasts of the forest.
When the Indian intends to chase the peccari, or
surprise the deer, or rouse the tapir from his marshy
retreat, he carries his bow and arrows, which are very
different from the weapons already described.
The bow is generally from six to seven feet long, and
strung with a cord, spun out of the silk-grass. The
forests of Guiana furnish many species of hard wood,
tough and elastic, out of which beautiful and excellent
bows are formed.
The arrows are from four to five feet in length,
made of a yellow reed without a knot or joint. It is
found in great plenty up and down throughout Guiana,
SOUTH AMERICA. 101
A piece of hard wood, about nine inches long, is in-
serted into the end of the reed, and fastened with
cotton well waxed. A square hole, an inch deep, is
then made in the end of this piece of hard wood,
done tight round with cotton to keep it from splitting.
Into this square hole is fitted a spike of eoucourite
wood, poisoned, and which may be kept there, or taken
out at pleasure. A joint of bamboo, about as thick as
your finger, is fitted on over the poisoned spike, to
prevent accidents and defend it from the rain, and is
taken off when the arrow is about to be used. Lastly,
two feathers are fastened on the other end of the reed
to steady it in its flight.
Besides his bow and arrows, the Indian carries a
little box made of bamboo, which holds a dozen or
fifteen poisoned spikes six inches long. They are
poisoned in the following manner: a small piece of
wood is dipped in the poison, and with this they give
the spike a first coat. It is then exposed to the sun or
fire. After it is dry, it receives another coat, and is
then dried again; after this a third coat, and some-
times a fourth.
They take great care to put the poison on thicker at
the middle than at the sides, by which means the spike
retains the shape of a two-edged sword. It is rather a
tedious operation to make one of these arrows com-
plete; and as the Indian is not famed for industry,
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except when pressed by hunger, he has hit upon a plan
of preserving his arrows which deserves notice.
About a quarter of an inch above the part where
the coucourite spike is fixed into the square hole, he
cuts it half through; and thus, when it has entered
the animal, the weight of the arrow causes it to break
off there, by which means the arrow falls to the ground
uninjured; so that, should this be the only arrow he
happens to have with him, and should another shot
immediately occur, he has only to take another
poisoned spike out of his little bamboo box, fit it on
his arrow, and send it to its destination.
Thus armed with deadly poison, and hungry as the
hysena, he ranges through the forest in quest of the
wild beast's track. USTo hound can act a surer part.
Without clothes to fetter him, or shoes to bind his
feet, he observes the footsteps of the game, where an
European eye could not discern the smallest vestige.
He pursues it through all its turns and windings with
. astonishing perseverance, and success generally crowns
his efforts. The animal, after receiving the poisoned
arrow, seldom retreats two hundred paces before it
drops.
In passing overland from the Essequibo to the
Demerara we fell in with a herd of wild hogs.
Though encumbered with baggage, and fatigued with
a hard day's walk, an Indian got his bow ready, and
r
SOUTH AMERICA 108
let fly a poisoned arrow at one of them. It entered
the cheek-bone and broke off. The wild hog was
found quite dead about one hundred and seventy paces
from the place where he had been shot. He afforded
us an excellent and wholesome supper.
Thus the savage of Guiana, independent of the
common weapons of destruction, has it in his power to
prepare a poison, by which he can generally ensure to
himself a supply of animal food; and the food so
destroyed imbibes no deleterious qualities. Nature
has been bountiful to him. She has not only ordered
poisonous herbs and roots to grow in the unbounded
forests through which he strays, but has also furnished
an excellent reed for his arrows, and another, still
more singular, for his blowpipe; and planted trees of
an amazing hard, tough, and elastic texture, out of
which he forms his bows. And in order that nothing
might be wanting, she has superadded a tree which
yields him a fine wax, and disseminated up and down,
a plant not unlike that of the pineapple, which affords
him capital bowstrings.
Having now followed the Indian in the chase, and
described the poison, let us take a nearer view of its
action, and observe a large animal expiring under the
weight of its baneful virulence.
Many have doubted the strength of the wourali-
poison. Should they ever by chance read what follows,
104
WANDERINGS IN
probably tlieir doubts on that score will be settled for
ever.
In tbe former experiment on the hog some faint
resistance on the part of nature was observed, as if
existence struggled for superiority; but in the follow-
ing instance of the sloth life sank in death without the
least apparent contention, without a cry, without a
struggle, and without a groan. This was an ai, or
three-toed sloth. It was in the possession of a gentle-
man who was collecting curiosities. He wished to have
it killed, in order to preserve the skin, and the
wourali-poison was resorted to as the easiest death.
Of all animals, not even the toad and tortoise
excepted, this poor ill-formed creature is the most
tenacious of life. It exists long after it has received
wounds which would have destroyed any other animal;
and it may be said, on seeing a mortally wounded
sloth, that life disputes with death every inch of flesh
in its body.
The ai was wounded in the leg, and put down on the
floor, about two feet from the table; it contrived to
reach the leg of the table, and fastened himself on it,
as if wishful to ascend. But this was its last advanc-
ing step: life was ebbing fast, though imperceptibly;
nor could this singular production of nature, which has
been formed of a texture to resist death in a thousand
shapes, make any stand against the wourali-poison.
SOUTH AMEBICA,
105
First, one fore-leg let go its hold, and dropped
down motionless by its side; the other gradually did
the same. The fore-legs having now lost their strength,
the sloth slowly doubled its body, and placed its head
betwixt its hind-legs, which still adhered to the table;
but when the poison had affected these also it sank to
the.ground, but sank so gently, that you could not
distinguish the movement from an ordinary motion;
and had you been ignprant that it was wounded with a
poisoned arrow, you would never have suspected that it
was dying. Its mouth was shut, nor had any froth or
saliva collected there.
There was no subsidtus tencliniim, or any visible
alteration in its breathing. During the tenth minute
from the time it was wounded it stirred, and that was
all; and the minute after life's last spark went out.
From the time the poison began to operate, you would
have conjectured that sleep was overpowering it, and
you would have exclaimed, "Pressitque jacentem,
dulcis et alta quies, pla,cidaeque simillima morti."
There are now two positive proofs of the effect of this
fatal poison, viz., the death of the hog, and that of the
sloth. But still these animals were nothing remarkable
for size; and the strength of the poison in large animals
might yet be doubted, were it not for what follows.
A large well-fed ox, from nine hundred to a
thousand pounds' weight, was tied to a stake by a rope
10t>"
WANDERINGS IN
sufficiently long to allow Mm to move to and fro.
Having no large couconrite spikes at hand, it was
judged necessary, on account of his superior size, to
put three wild-hog arrows into him; one was sent
into each thigh just above the hock, in order to avoid
wounding a vital part, and the third was shot trans-
versely into the extremity of the nostril.
The poison seemed to take effect in four minutes.
Conscious as though he would fall, the ox set himself
firmly on his legs, and remained quite still in the same
place till about the fourteenth minute, when he
smelled the ground, and appeared as if inclined to
walk. He advanced a pace or two, staggered, and
fell, and remained extended on his side with his head
on the ground. His eye, a few minutes ago so bright
and lively, now became fixed and dim, and though
you put your hand close to it, as if to give him a blow
there, he never closed his eyelid.
His legs were convulsed, and his head from time
to time started involuntarily; but he never showed the
least desire to raise it from the ground; he breathed
hard, and emitted foam from his mouth. The startings,
or subsultus tendinum, now became gradually weaker
and weaker; his hinder parts were fixed in death • and
in a minute or two more his head and fore-legs ceased
to stir.
Nothing now remained to show that life was still
SOUTH AMERICA. 107
within him, except that his heart faintly beat and
fluttered at intervals. In five-and-twenty minutes
from the time of his being wounded he was quite dead.
His flesh was very sweet and savoury at dinner.
On taking a. retrospective view of the two different
kinds of poisoned arrows, and the animals destroyed
by them, it would appear that the quantity of poison
must be proportioned to the animal, and thus those
probably labour under an error who imagine that the
smallest particle of it introduced into the blood has
almost instantaneous effects.
Make an estimate of the difference in size betwixt
the fowl and the ox, and then weigh a sufficient quan-
tity of poison for a blowpipe arrow with which the
fowl was killed, and weigh also enough poison for
three wild-hog arrows which destroyed the ox, and it
will appear that the fowl received much more poison
in proportion than the ox. Hence the cause why the
fowl died in five minutes and the ox in five-and-
twenty.
Indeed, were it the case that the smallest particle
of it introduced into the blood has almost instantaneous
effects, the Indian would not find it necessary to make
the large arrow; that of the blowpipe is much easier
made and requires less poison.
And now for the antidotes, or rather the supposed
antidotes. The Indians tell you, that if the wounded
108
WANDERINGS IN
animal be held for a considerable time up to the mouth
in water, the poison will not prove fatal; also that
the juice of the sugar-cane poured down the throat
will counteract the effects of it. These antidotes were
fairly tried upon full-grown healthy fowls, but they all
died, as though no steps had been taken to preserve
their lives. Rum was recommended and given to
another, but with as little success.
It is supposed by some that wind introduced into
the lungs by means of a small pair of bellows would
revive the poisoned patient, provided the operation be
continued for a sufficient length of time. It may be
so; but this is a difficult and a tedious mode of cure,
and he who is wounded in the forest far away from
his friends, or in the hut of the savages, stands but a
poor chance of being saved by it.
Had the Indians a sure antidote, it is likely they
would carry it about with them, or resort to it imme-
diately after being wounded, if at hand; and their
confidence in its efficacy would greatly diminish the
horror they betray when you point a poisoned arrow
at them.
One day, while we were eating a red monkey, erro-
neously called the baboon of Demerara, an Arowack
Indian told an affecting story of what happened to a
comrade of his. He was present at his death. As it
did not interest this Indian in any point to tell a
SOUTH AMERICA.
109
falsehood, it is very probable that Ms account was a
true one. If so, it appears that there is no certain
antidote, or at least an antidote that could be resorted
to in a case of urgent need; for the Indian gave up all
thoughts of life as soon as he was wounded.
The Arowack Indian said it was but four years ago
that he and his companion were ranging in the forest
in quest of game. His companion took a poisoned
arrow, and sent it at a red monkey in a tree above him.
It was nearly a perpendicular shot. The arrow missed
the monkey, and in the descent struck hi-m in the
arm a little above the elbow. He was convinced it
was all over with him. "I ^ shall never," said he to
his companion in a faltering voice, and looking at his
bow as he said it, "I shall never," said he, "bend this
bow again." And having said that he took on2 his
little bamboo poison-box, which hung across his
shoulder, and putting it, together with his bow and
arrows, on the ground, he laid himself down close by
them, bid his companion farewell, and never spoke
more.
He who is unfortunate enough to be wounded by
a poisoned arrow from Macoushia had better not de-
pend upon the common antidotes for a cure. Many
who have been in Guiana will recommend immediate
immersion in water, or to take the juice of the
augar-cane, or to fill the mouth full of salt; and they
110
WANDERINGS IN
recommend these antidotes because they have got them
from the Indians. But were you to ask them if they
ever saw these antidotes used with success, it is ten to
one their answer would be in the negative.
Wherefore let him reject these antidotes as unprofit-
able, and of no avail. He has got an active and a
deadly foe within him, which, like Shakespeare's fell
Sergeant Death, is strict in his arrest, and will allow
him but little time—very, very little time. In a
few minutes he will be numbered with the dead.
Life ought, if possible, to be preserved, be the expense
ever so great. Should the part affected admit of it,
let a ligature be tied tight round the wound, and have
immediate recourse to the knife :—
"Continue*, ctilpam f erro compesce prmsquam,
Dira per infaustum serpant contagia corpus."
And now, kind reader, it is time to bid thee farewell.
The two ends proposed have been obtained. The
Portuguese inland frontier fort has been reached, and
the Macoushi wourali-poison acquired. The account
of this excursion through the interior of Guiana has
been submitted to thy perusal, in order to induce thy
abler genius to undertake a more extensive one. If
any difficulties have arisen, or fevers come on, they
have been caused by the periodical rains, which fall in
torrents as the sun approaches the tropic of Cancer. In
dry weather there would be no difficulties or sickness.
F
SOUTH AMERICA. Ill
Amongst the many satisfactory conclusions which
thou wouldst be able to draw during the journey,
there is one which, perhaps, would please thee not a
little, and that is with regard to dogs. Many a time,
no doubt, thou hast heard it hotly disputed that dogs
existed in Guiana previously to the arrival of the
Spaniards in those parts. Whatever the Spaniards
introduced, and which bore no resemblance to anything
the Indians had been accustomed to see, retains its
Sj)anish name to this day.
Thus the Warrow, the Arowack, the Acoway, the
Macouski, and Carib tribes, call a hat, "sombrero;" a
shirt, or any kind of cloth, "camisa;" a shoe, "zapato;"
a letter, "carta;" a fowl, "gallina;" gunpowder,
"colvora" (Spanish, "polvora"); ammunition, "bala;"
a cow, vaca;J5 and a dog, "perro."
This argues strongly against the existence of dogs
in Guiana before it was discovered by the Spaniards,
and probably may be of use to thee in thy next canine
dispute.
In a political point of view this country presents a
large field for speculation. A few years ago there was
but little inducement for any Englishman to explore
the interior of these rich and fine colonies, as the
British Government did not consider them worth
holding at the peace of Amiens. Since that period
their mother-country has been blotted out from the
Wanderings in
list of nations, and America has unfolded a new sheet
of politics. On one side the crown of Braganza,
attacked by an ambitions chieftain, has fled from the
palace of its ancestors, and now seems fixed on the
banks of the Janeiro. Cayenne has yielded to its
arms. La Plata has raised the standard of indepen-
dence, and thinks itself sufficiently strong to obtain a
government of its own. On the other side, the
Oaraccas are in open revolt, and should Santa Ee join
them in good earnest they may form a powerful
association.
Thus, on each side of the ci-devant Dutch Guiana,
most unexpected and astonishing changes have taken
place. Will they raise or lower it in the scale of
estimation at the Court of St. James's? Will they
be of benefit to these grand and extensive colonies?
-—colonies enjoying perpetual summer—colonies of the
xichest soil—colonies containing within themselves
^everything necessary for their support—colonies, in
:fme, so varied in their quality and situation, as to be
capable of bringing to perfection every tropical pro-
duction; and only want the support of government,
and an enlightened governor, to render them as fine
.as the finest portions of the equatorial regions. Kind
.reader, fare thee well.
SOUTH AMEBICA. US
LETTER TO THE PORTUGUESE COMMANDER.
Mdt Señor,
Como no tengo el honor, de ser conocido de VM. lo pienso
mejor, y mas decoroso, quedarme aqui, hastaque tuviere
recibido su respuesta. Haviendo caminado hasta la chozo,
adonde estoi, no quisiere volverme, antes de haver visfco la
fortaleza de los Portugueses; y pido licencia de VM. para que
me adelante. Honradissimos son mis motivos, ni tengo pro-
yecto ninguno, o de comercio, o de la soldadesca, no siendo
yo, o comerciante, o oficial. Hidalgo católico soy, de hacienda
in Ynglatierra, y muchos años de mi vida he pasado en caminar.
Ultimamente, de Dera eraría vengo, la qual dexé el 5 dia de
Abril, para ver este hermoso pais, y coger unas curiosidades,
especialmente, el veneno, que se llama wourali. Las mas re-
centes noticias que tenian en Demeraria, antes de mi salida,
eran medias tristes, medias alegres. Tristes digo, viendo que
Valencia ha caido en poder del enemigo común, y el G-eneral
Blake, y sus valientes tropas, quedan prisioneros de guerra.
Alegres, al contrario, porque Milord "Wellington se ha apode-
rado de Ciudad Rodrigo. A pesar de la caida de Valencia,
parece claro al mundo, que las cosas del enemigo están andan-
do de pejor a pejor cada dia. Nosotros debemos dar gracias al
Altissimo, por haver sido servido dexarnos castigar ultima-
mente a los robadores de sus santas Yglesias. Se vera VM.
que yo no escribo Portugués ni aun lo hablo, pero, haviendo
aprendido el Castellano, no nos faltará medio de communicar y
tener conversación. Ruego se escuse esta carta escrita sin
tinta, porque un Indio dexo caer mi tintero y quebróse. Dios
le dé a VM. muchos años de salud. Entretanto, tengo el
honor de ser
Sn mas obedeciente servidor,
Carlos Waterton.
114
WANDERINGS IN
1
REMARKS.
"Incertus, quo fata ferant, ubi sistere detar."
Kind and gentle reader, if the journey in quest of the
wourali-poison has engaged thy attention, probably
thou mayst recollect that the traveller took leave of
thee at Fort St. Joachim, on the Rio Branco. Shouldst
thou wish to know what befell him afterwards, excuse
the following uninteresting narrative-
Having had a return of fever, and aware that the
farther he advanced into these wild and lonely regions
the less would be the chance of regaining his health,
he gave up all idea of proceeding onwards, and went
slowly back towards the Demerara nearly by the same-
route he had come.
On descending the falls in the Essequibo, which
form an oblique line quite across the river, it was re-
solved to push through them, the downward stream
being in the canoe's favour. At a little distance from
the place a large tree had fallen into the river, and in
the meantime the canoe was lashed to one of its
branches.
The roaring of the water was dreadful; it foamed
and dashed over the rocks with a tremendous spray,
r
SOUTH AMERICA.
115
like breakers on a lee-shore, threatening destruction
to whatever approached it. You would have thought,
by the confusion it caused in the river, and the whirl-
pools it made, that Scylla and Charybdis, and their
whole progeny, had left the Mediterranean, and come
and settled here. The channel was barely twelve feet
wide, and the torrent in rushing down formed transverse
furrows, which showed how near the rocks were to the
surface.
Nothing could surpass the skill of the Indian who
steered the canoe. He looked steadfastly at it, then
at the rocks, then cast an eye on the channel, and
then looked at the canoe again. It was in vain to speak.
The sound was lost in the roar of waters; but his eye
showed that he had already passed it in imagination.
He held up his paddle in a position, as much as to say,
that he would keep exactly amid channel; and then
made a sign to cut the bush rope that held the canoe
to the fallen tree. The canoe drove down the torrent
with inconceivable rapidity. It did not touch the
rocks once all the way. The Indian proved to a nicety
"medio tutissimus ibis."
Shortly after this it rained almost day and night,
the lightning flashing incessantly, and the roar of
thunder awful beyond expression.
The fever returned, and pressed so heavy on him,
that to all appearance his last day's march was over.
116
WANDERINGS IN
1
However, it abated; his spirits rallied, and lie marched
again; and after delays and inconveniences he reached
the house of his worthy friend Mr. Edmonstone, in
Mibiri Creek, which falls into the Demerara. No
words of his can do justice to the hospitality of that
gentleman, whose repeated encounters with the hostile
negroes in the forest have been publicly rewarded,
and will be remembered in the colony for years to
come.
Here he learned that an eruption had taken place
in St. Yincent's; and thus the noise heard in the
night of the first of May, which had caused such terror
amongst the Indians, and made the garrison at Fort
St. Joachim remain under arms the rest of the night,
is accounted for.
After experiencing every kindness and attention
from Mr. Edmonstone, he sailed for Granada, and
from thence to St. Thomas's, a few days before poor
Captain Peake lost his life on his own quarter-deck,
bravely fighting for his country on the coast of
Guiana.
At St. Thomas's they show you a tower, a little
distance from the town, which, they say, formerly be-
longed to a buccaneer chieftain. Probably the fury of
besiegers has reduced it to its present dismantled
state. What still remains of it bears testimony of its
former strength, and may brave the attack of time for
SOUTH AMERICA.
117
centuries. You cannot view its ruins without calling
to mind the exploits of those fierce and hardy hunters,
long the terror of the western world. While you ad-
mire their undaunted courage, you lament that it was
often stained with cruelty; while you extol their
scrupulous justice to each other, you will find a want
of it towards the rest of mankind. Often possessed
of enormous wealth, often in extreme poverty, often
triumphant on the ocean, and often forced to fly to the
forests, their life was an ever-changing scene of
advance and retreat, of glory and disorder, of luxury
and famine. Spain treated them as outlaws and pirates,
while other European Powers publicly disowned them.
They, on the other hand, maintained that injustice on
the part of Spain first forced them to take up arms in
self-defence; and that, whilst they kept inviolable the
laws which they had framed for their own common
benefit and protection, they had a right to consider as
foes those who treated them as outlaws. Under this
impression they drew the sword, and rushed on as
though in lawful war, and divided the spoils of victory
in the scale of justice.
After leaving St. Thomas's a severe tertian ague
every now and then kept putting the traveller in
mind that his shattered frame, "starting and shivering
in the inconstant blast, meagre and pale—the ghost
of what it was"—wanted repairs. Three years elapsed
118 WANDERINGS IN
after arriving* in England before the ague took its
final leave of him.
During that time several experiments were made
with the wourali-poison. In London an ass was in-
oculated with it, and died in twelve minutes. The
poison was inserted into the leg of another, round
which a bandage had been previously tied a little
above the place where the wourali was introduced.
He walked about as usual, and ate his food as though
all were right. After an hour had elapsed the bandage
was untied, and ten minutes after death overtook him.
A she-ass received the wourali-poison in the shoulder,
and died apparently in ten minutes. An incision was
then made in its windpipe, and through it the lungs
were regularly inflated for two hours with a pair of
bellows. Suspended animation returned. The ass
held up her head, and looked around; but the inflating
being discontinued, she sank once more in apparent
death. The artificial breathing was immediately re-
commenced, and continued without intermission for
two hours; this saved the ass from final dissolution.
She rose up, and walked about; she seemed neither
in agitation nor in pain. The wound, through which
the poison entered, was healed without difficulty.
Her constitution, however, was so severely affected
that it was long a doubt if ever she would be well
again. She looked lean and sickly for above a year,
r
SOUTH AMERICA.
119
but began to mend the spring after, and by Midsummer
became fat and frisky.
The kind-hear ted reader will rejoice on learning
that Earl Percy, pitying her misfortunes, sent her
down from London to Walton Hall, near "Wakefield.
There she goes by the name of Wouralia. Wouralia
shall be sheltered from the wintry storm; and when
summer comes she shall feed in the finest pasture.
No burden shall be placed upon her, and she shall end
her days in peace.
For three revolving autumns the ague-beaten wan-
derer never saw, without a sigh, the swallow bend her
flight towards warmer regions. He wished to go too,
but could not; for sickness had enfeebled him, and
prudence pointed out the folly of roving again too
soon across the northern tropic. To be sure, the
Continent was now open, and change of air might
prove beneficial; but there was nothing very tempting
in a trip across the Channel, and as for a tour through
England—England has long ceased to be the land
for adventures. Indeed, when good King Arthur re-
appears to claim his crown he will find things strangely
altered here; and may we not look for his coming?
for there is written upon his gravestone :—
"Hie jacet Arturus, Rex quondam Rexque futurus,"
4 c Here Arthur lies, who formerly
"Was king—and king again to be."
120
WANDERINGS IN
Don Quixote was always of opinion that this famous
king did not die, but that he was changed into a raven
by enchantment, and that the English are momentarily
expecting his return. Be this as it may, it is certain
that when he reigned here all was harmony and joy.
The browsing herds passed from vale to vale, the
swains sang from the bluebell-teeming groves, and
nymphs, with eglantine and roses in their neatly-
braided hair, went hand in hand to the flowery mead
to weave garlands for their lambkins. If by chance
some rude uncivil fellow dared to molest, them, or at-
tempted to throw thorns in their path, there was sure
to be a knight-errant not far off ready to rush forward
in their defence. But alas! in these degenerate days
it is not so. Should a harmless cottage-maid wander
out of the highway to pluck a primrose or two in the
neighbouring field the haughty owner sternly bids her
retire; and if a pitying swain hasten to escort her
back, he is perhaps seized by the gaunt house-dog ere
he reach her.
iEneas's route on the other side of Styx could not
have been much worse than this, though by his ac-
count, when he got back to earth, it appears that he
had fallen in with "Bellua Lernse, horrendum stridens,
flammisque, armata Chimsera."
Moreover, he had a sibyl to guide his steps; and
as such a conductress nowadays could not be got for
SOUTH AMERICA.
121
love nor money, it was judged most prudent to refrain
from sauntering through this land of freedom, and
wait with patience the return of health. At last this
long-looked-for, ever-welcome stranger came.
122
WANDERINGS IN
In the year 1816, two days before the yernal equi-
nox, I sailed from Liverpool for Pernainbuco, in the
southern hemisphere, on the coast of Brazil. There
is little at this time of the year in the European
part of the Atlantic to engage the attention of the
naturalist. As you go down the Channel you see
a few divers and gannets. The middle-sized gulls,
with a black spot at the end of the wings, attend you a
little way into the Bay of Biscay. "When it bljbws a
hard gale of wind the stormy petrel makes its appear-
ance. While the sea runs mountains high, and every
wave threatens destruction to the labouring vessel,
this little harbinger of storms is seen enjoying itself,
on rapid pinion, up and down the roaring billows.
When the storm is over it appears no more. It is
known to every English sailor by the name of Mother
Carey's chicken. It must have been hatched in
^Eolus's cave, amongst a clutch of squalls and tem-
pests; for whenever they get out upon the ocean it
always contrives to be of the party.
Though the calms and storms and adverse winds
SOUTH AMERICA.
123
in these latitudes are vexations, still, when yon reach
the trade winds, you are amply repaid for all disap-
pointments and inconveniences. The trade winds
prevail about thirty degrees on each side of the
equator. This part of the ocean may be called the
Elysian Fields of Neptune's empire; and the torrid
zone, notwithstanding Ovid's remark, "non est habita-
bilis sestu," is rendered healthy and pleasant by these
gently-blowing breezes. The ship glides smoothly
on, and you soon find yourself within the northern
tropic. When you are on it, Cancer is just over
your head, and betwixt him and Capricorn is the
high road of the Zodiac, forty-seven degrees wide,
famous for Phaeton's misadventure. His father
begged and entreated him not to take it into his head
to drive parallel to the five zones, but to mind and
keep on the turnpike which runs obliquely across
the equator. "There you will distinctly see," said
he, "the ruts of my chariot wheels, 'nmnifesta rotas
vestigia cernes/ But," added he, £< even suppose
you keep on it, and avoid the byroads, nevertheless,
my dear boy, believe me, you will be most sadly, put
to your shifts; 'ardua prima via est,' the first part of
the road is confoundedly steep!' ultima via prona
est,' and after that it is all down hill. Moreover,
'per insidias iter est, formasque ferarum,' the road
is full of nooses and bull-dogs, 'Hseinoniosque arcus/
124
WANDERINGS IN
and spring guns, 'ssevaque circuitu, curvantem brachia
longo, Scorpio/ and steel traps of uncommon size
and shape." These were nothing in the eyes of Phaeton;
go he would, so off he set, full speed, four-in-hand.
He had a tough drive of it; and after doing a pro-
digious deal of mischief, very luckily for the world,
he got thrown out of the box, and tumbled into the
river Po.
Some of our modern bloods have been shallow
enough to try to ape this poor empty-headed coach,
man, on a little scale, making London their Zodiac.
"Well for them if tradesmen's bills, and other trivial
perplexities, have not caused them to be thrown into
the King's Bench.
The productions of the torrid zone are uncommonly
grand. Its plains, its swamps, its savannas, and
forests abound with the largest serpents and wild
beasts; and its trees are the habitation of the most
beautiful of the feathered race. While the traveller
in the Old World is astonished at the elephant, the
tiger, the lion, and the rhinoceros, he who wanders
through the torrid regions of the New is lost in
admiration at the cotingas, the toucans, the humming-
birds, and aras.
The ocean, likewise, swarms with curiosities. Pro-
bably the flying-fish may be considered as one of the
most singular. This little scaled inhabitant of water
SOUTH AMERICA.
125
and air seems to have been more favoured than the
rest of its finny brethren. It can rise out of the
waves, and on wing visit the domain of the birds.
After flying two or three hundred yards, the
intense heat of the sun has dried its pellucid wings,
and it is obliged to wet them in order to continue its
flight. It just drops into the ocean for a moment,
and then rises again and flies on; and then descends
to remoisten them, and then up again into the air;
thus passing its life, sometimes wet, sometimes dry,
sometimes in sunshine, and sometimes in the pale
moon's nightly beam, as pleasure dictates, or as need
requires. The additional assistance of wings is nofc
thrown away upon it. It has full occupation both
for fins and wings, as its life is in perpetual danger.
The bonito and albicore chase it day and night;
. but the dolphin is its worst and swiftest foe. If it
escape into the air, the dolphin pushes on with pro-
portional velocity beneath, and is ready to snap it up
the moment it descends to wet its wings.
You will often see above one hundred of these little
marine aerial fugitives on the wing at once. They
appear to use every exertion to prolong their flight,
but vain are all their efforts; for when the last drop
of water on their wings is dried up, their flight is at
an end, and they must drop into the ocean. Some
are instantly devoured by their merciless pursuer,
126
WANDERINGS IN
part escape by swimming, and others get out again
as quick as possible, and trust once more to their
wings.
It often happens that this unfortunate little creature,
after alternate dips and flights, finding all its exertions
of no ayail, at last drops on board the vessel, verifying
the old remark—
"Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.',
There, stunned by the fall, it beats the deck with
its tail, and dies. When eating it, you would take it
for a fresh herring. The largest measure from four-
teen to fifteen inches in length. The dolphin, after
pursuing it to the ship, sometimes forfeits his own
life.
In days of yore, the musician used to play in
softest, sweetest strain, and then take an airing
amongst the dolphins; "inter delphinas Arion." But
nowadays, our tars have quite capsized the custom;
and instead of riding ashore on the dolphin, they in-
vited the dolphin aboard. "While he is darting and
playing around the vessel, a sailor goes out to the
spritsailyard-arm, and with a long staff, leaded at one
end, and armed at the other with five barbed spikes, he
heaves it at him. If successful in his aim, there is a
fresh mess for all hands. The dying dolphin affords a
superb and brilliant sight:
"Mille trahit moriens, adverso sole colores."
SOUTH AMERICA.
127
All the colours of the rainbow pass and repass in
rapid succession over his body, till the dark hand of
death closes the scene.
From the Cape de Yerd Islands to the coast of
Brazil you see several different kinds of gulls, which
probably are bred in the island of St. Paul. Some-
times the large bird called the frigate pelican soars
majestically over the vessel, and the troj^ic-bird comes
near enough to let you have a fair view of the long
feathers in his tail. On the line when it is calm
sharks of a tremendous size make their ap23earance.
They are descried from the ship by means of the
dorsal fin, which is above the water.
On entering the Bay of Pernambuco, the frigate
pelican is seen watching the shoals of fish from a pro-
digious height. It seldom descends without a suc-
cessful attack on its numerous prey below.
As you approach the shore the view is charming.
The hills are clothed with wood, gradually rising
towards the interior, none of them of any considerable
height. A singular reef of rocks rims parallel to the
coast, and forms the harbour of Pernambuco. The
vessels are moored betwixt it and the town, safe from
every storm. You enter the harbour through a very
narrow passage, close by a fort built on the reef. The
hill of Olinda, studded with houses and convents,
is on your right hand, and an island, thickly planted
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WANDERINGS IN
with cocoa-nut trees, adds considerably to the scene on
your left. There are two strong forts on the isthmus,
betwixt Olinda and Pernambuco, and a pillar midway
to aid the pilot.
Pernambuco probably contains upwards of fifty
thousand souls. It stands on a flat, and is divided
into three parts—a peninsula, an island, and the
continent. Though within a few degrees of the line,
its climate is remarkably salubrious, and rendered
almost temperate by the refreshing sea-breeze. Had
art and judgment contributed their portion to its
natural advantages, Pernambuco at this day would
have been a stately ornament to the coast of Brazil.
On viewing it, it will strike you that every one has
built his house entirely for himself, and deprived
public convenience of the little claim she had a right
to put in. Tou would wish that this city, so famous
for its harbour, so happy in its climate, and so well
situated for commerce, could have risen under the
flag of Dido, in lieu of that of Braganza.
As you walk down the streets, the appearance of
the houses is not mucb in their favour. Some of them
are very high, and some very low; some newly white-
washed, and others stained and mouldy and neglected,
as though they had no owner.
The balconies, too, are of a dark and gloomy
appearance. They are not, in general, open, as in
SOUTH AMERICA.
12£
most tropical cities, but grated like a farmer's dairy
window, though somewhat closer.
There is a lamentable waut of cleanliness in the
streets. The impurities from the houses, and the
accumulation of litter from the beasts of burden, are
unpleasant sights to the passing stranger. He laments
the want of a police as he goes along; and when the
wind begins to blow, his nose and eyes are too often
exposed to a cloud of very unsavoury dust.
When you view the port of Pernambueo, full of
■ships of all nations; when you know that the richest-
commodities of Europe, Africa, and Asia are brougut-
to it; when you see immense quantities of cotton.,
dye-wood, and the choicest fruits pouring into the
town, you are apt to wonder at the little attention
these people j>ay to the common comforts which one
always expects to find in a large and opulent city^
However, if the inhabitants are satisfied, there is
nothing more to be said. Should they ever be con-
vinced that inconveniences exist, and that nuisances
are too frequent, the remedy is in their own hands-.
At present, certainly, they seem perfectly regardless
of them; and the Captain-General of Pernambueo
walks through the streets with as apparent content
and composure as an English statesman would prt>-
ceed down Charing Cross. Custom reconciles every,
thing. In a week or two the stranger himself begins
E—54
130
WANDERINGS IN
fo feel less the things which annoyed him so much
upon his first arrival, and after a few months' resi-
dence he thinks no more about them, while he is
partaking of the hospitality and enjoying the ele-
gance and splendour within doors in this great
•city.
Close by the riverside stands what is called the
Palace of the Captain-General of Pernambuco. Its
form and appearance altogether strike the traveller
that it was never intended for the use it is at present
put to.
Header, throw a veil over thy recollection for a
little while, and forget the cruel, unjust, and un-
merited censures thou hast heard against an un-
offending order. This palace was once the Jesuits'
college, and originally built by those charitable
fathers. Ask the aged and respectable inhabitants
of Pernambuco, and they will tell thee that the de-
struction of the Society of Jesus was a terrible disaster
to the public, and its consequences severely felt to
the present day.
"When Pombal took the reins of power into his
own hands, virtue and learning beamed bright within
the college walls. Public catechism to the children,
-and religious instruction to all, flowed daily from the
mouths of its venerable priests.
They were loved, revered, and respected throughout
SOUTH AMERICA.
181
the whole town. The illuminating philosophers of
the day had sworn to exterminate Christian know-
ledge, and the college of Pernambuco was doomed to
founder in the general storm. To the long-lasting
sorrow and disgrace of Portugal, the philosophers
blinded her king and flattered her Prime Minister.
Ponibal was exactly the- tool these sappers of every
public and private virtue wanted. He had the naked
sword of power in his own hand, and his heart was as
hard as flint. He struck a mortal blow, and the
Society of Jesus throughout the Portuguese dominions,
was no more.
One morning all the fathers of the college in Per-
nambuco, some of them very old and feeble, were
suddenly ordered into the refeetory. They had
notice beforehand of the fatal storm, in pity from
the governor, but noG one of them abandoned his
charge. They had done their duty, and had nothing
to fear. They bowed with resignation to the will of
Heaven. As soon as they had all reached the refec-
tory, they were there locked up, and never more did
they see their rooms, their friends, their scholars, or
acquaintance. In the dead of the following night,
a strong guard of soldiers literally drove them
through the streets to the water's edge. They were
then conveyed in boats aboard a ship, and steered for
Bahia. Those who survived the barbarous treatment
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WANDERINGS IN
they experienced from PombaFs creatures were at last
ordered to Lisbon. The college of Pernainbuco was
plundered, and some time after an elephant was kept
there.-
Thus the arbitrary hand of power, in one night,
smote and swept away the sciences; to which suc-
ceeded the low vulgar buffoonery of a showman.
"Virgil and Cicero made way for a wild beast from
Angola! and now a guard is on duty at the very
gate where, in times long past, the poor were daily
fed!!!
Trust not, kind reader, to the envious remarks which
their enemies have scattered far and near; believe not
the stories of those who have had a hand in the sad
tragedy. GrO to Brazil, and see with thine own eyes
the effect of PombaPs short-sighted policy. There vice
reigns triumphant, and learning is at its lowest ebb.
Neither is this to be wondered at. Destroy the
compass, and will the vessel find her far-distant port?
Will the flock keep together, and escape the wolves,
after the shepherds are all slain? The Brazilians were
told that public education would go on just as usual.
They might have asked Government, who so able
to instruct our youth as those whose knowledge is
proverbial? who so fit as those who enjoy our entire
confidence? who so worthy, as those whose lives are
irreproachable?
SOUTH AMERICA.
133
They soon found that those who succeeded the
fathers of the Society of Jesus had neither their
manner nor their abilities. They had not made the
instruction of youth their particular study. More-
over, they entered on the field after a defeat, where
the officers had all been slain; where the plan of the
campaign was lost; where all was in sorrow and
dismay. No exertions of theirs could rally the dis-
persed, or skill prevent the fatal consequences. At
the present day the seminary of Olinda, in com-
parison with the former Jesuits' college, is only as
the waning moon's beam to the sun's meridian splen-
dour.
When you visit the places where those learned
fathers once nourished, and see with your own eyes
the evils their dissolution has caused; when you hear
the inhabitants telling you how good, how clever, how
charitable they were—what will you think of our poet
laureate for calling them, in his "History of Brazil,"
"Missioners, whose zeal the most fanatical was directed
by the coolest policy "?
Was it fanatical to renounce the honours and com-
forts of this transitory life, in order to gain eternal
glory in the next, by denying themselves, and taking
iip the cross P Was it fanatical to preach salvation
to innumerable wild hordes of Americans, to clothe
the naked, to encourage the repenting sinner, to
134
WANDERINGS IN
aid the dying Christian? The fathers of the Society
of Jesus did all this. And for this their zeal is pro-
nounced to be the most fanatical, directed by the
coolest policy. It will puzzle many a clear brain to
comprehend how it is possible, in the nature of things,
that zeal the most fanatical should be directed by the
coolest policy. Ah, Mr. Laureate, Mr. Laureate, that
"quidlibet audendi" of yours may now and then gild
the poet, at the same time that it makes the historian
cut a sorry figure!
Could Father Nobrega rise from the tomb, he would
thus address you:—" Ungrateful Englishman, you
have drawn a great part of your information from the
writings of the Society of Jesus, and in return you
attempt to stain its character by telling your country-
men that 'we taught the idolatry we believed!' In
speaking of me, you say, it was my happy fortune to
be stationed in a country where none but the good
principles of my order were called into action. Un-
generous laureate, the narrow policy of the times has
kept your countrymen in the dark with regard to the
true character of the Society of Jesus; and you draw
the bandage still tighter over their eyes by a malicious
insinuation. I lived, and taught, and died in Brazil,
,vhere you state that none but the good principles of
my order were called into action, and still, in most
absolute contradiction to this, you remark we believed
SOUTH AMERICA,
135
the idolatry we taught in Brazil. Thus we brought
none but good principles into action, and still taught
idolatry!
"Again, you state there is no individual to whose
talents Brazil is so greatly and permanently indebted
as mine, and that I must be regarded as the founder
of that system so successfully pursued by the Jesuits
in Paraguay; a system productive of as much good
as is compatible with pious fraud. Thus you make
me, at one and the same time, a teacher of none but
good principles, and a teacher of idolatry, and a
believer in idolatry, and still the founder of a system
for which Brazil is greatly and permanently indebted
to me, though, by-the-bye, the system was only pro-
ductive of as much good as is compatible with pious
fraud!
"What means all this? After reading* such incom-
parable nonsense, should your countrymen wish to be.
properly informed concerning the Society of Jesus,
there are in England documents enough to show that
the system of the Jesuits was a system of Christian?
charity towards their fellow-creatures, administered^
in a manner which human prudence judged bests
calculated to ensure success; and that the idolatry
which you uncharitably affirm they taught was really
and truly the very same faith which the Catholic
Church taught for centuries in England, whicji she
136
WANDERINGS IN
-still teaches to those who wish to hear her, and which
■ahe will continue to teach pure and unspotted, till
time shall be no more."
The environs of Pernambuco are very pretty. You
see country houses in all directions, and the appear-
ance of here and there a sugar plantation enriches
the scenery. Palm-trees, cocoa-nut trees, orange
and lemon groves, and all the different fruits peculiar
to Brazil, are here in the greatest abundance.
At Olinda there is a national botanical garden; it
wants space, produce, and improvement. The forests
which are several leagues oif, abound with birds,
leasts, insects, and serpents. Besides a brilliant
plumage, many of the birds have a very fine song.
The troupiale, noted for its rich colours, sings de-
lightfully in the environs of Pernambuco. The
red-headed finch, larger than the European sparrow,
pours forth a sweet and varied strain, in company with
two species of wrens, a little before daylight. There
are also several species of the thrash, which have a
song somewhat different from that of the European
thrush; and two species of the linnet, whose strain
is so soft and sweet that it dooms them to captivity
in the houses. A bird, called here sangre do buey
(blood of the ox), cannot fail to engage your attention:
lie is of the passerine tribe, and very common about
■the houses; the wings and tail are black, and every
SOUTH AMERICA. 137
other part of the body a flaming rod. In Guiana
there is a species exactly the same as this in shape,,
note, and economy, but differing in colour, its whole
body being like black velvet: on its breast a tinge of
red appears through the 11 ck. Thus nature has
ordered this little tangara to put on mourning to the
north of the line, and wears scarlet to the south of it.
For three months in the year the environs of Per-
nambuco are animated beyond description. From
November to March the weather is particularly fine;
then it is that rich and poor, young and old, foreigners
and natives, all issue from the city to enjoy the country ,
till Lent approaches, when back they hie them. Til-
lages and hamlets, where nothing before but rags were?
seen, now shine in all the elegance of dress; every
house, every room, every shed become eligible places
for those whom nothing but extreme necessity could
have forced to live there a few weeks ago: some join
in the merry dance, others saunter up and down the
orange groves; and towards evening the roads become
a moving scene of silk and jewels. The gaming-tables
have constant visitors; there, thousands are daily and
nightly lost and won; parties even sit down to try
their luck round the outside of the door as well as im
the room:—
"Vestibuhim ante ipsum primisque in faucibus aulas
Luctus et ultrices, posuere sedilia curse."
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WANDERINGS IN
About six or seven miles from Pernanibuco stands a
pretty little village called Monteiro; the river runs
close by it, and its rural beauties seem to surpass all
others in the neighbourhood; there the Captain-General
of Pernambuco resides during this time of merriment
and joy.
The traveller who allots a portion of his time to peep
at his fellow-creatures in their relaxations, and accus-
toms himself to read their several little histories in
their looks and gestures as he goes musing on, may
have full occupation for an hour or two every day
•at this season amid the variegated scenes around the
/pretty village of Monteiro. In the evening groups
fitting at the door, he may sometimes see with a sigh
how wealth and the prince's favour cause a booby to
■pass for a Solon, and be reverenced as such, while
perhaps a poor neglected Oamoens stands silent at a
distance, awed by the dazzling glare of wealth and
power. Retired from the public road he may see poor
Maria sitting under a palm-tree, with her elbow in her
lap and her head leaning on one side within her hand,
weeping ^ver her forbidden banns. And as he moves
on, "with wandering step and slow," he may hear a
broken-hearted.nymph ask her faithless swain,
"How could you say my face was fair,
And yet that face forsake?
SOUTH AMEBICA.
139
How could you win my virgin heart,
Yet leave that heart to break?"
One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far from
Monteiro, these adventures were near being brought to
a speedy and a final close: six or seven blackbirds, with,
a white spot betwixt the shoulders, were making a
noise, and passing to and fro on the lower branches of
a tree in an abandoned, weed-grown, orange orchard.
In the long grass underneath the tree, apparently a
pale green grasshopper was fluttering, as though it had
got entangled in it. When you once fancy that the
thing you are looking at is really what you take it for,
the more you look at it the more you are convinced it
is so. In the present case, this was a grasshopper
beyond all doubt, and nothing more remained to be
done but to wait in patience till it had settled, in order
that you might run no risk of breaking its legs in
attempting to lay hold of it while it was fluttering—it
still kept fluttering; and having quietly approached
it, intended to make sure of it—behold, the head of a
large rattlesnake appeared in the grass close by: an
instantaneous spring backwards prevented fatal conse-
quences. What had been taken for a grasshopper was,
in fact, the elevated rattle of the snake in the act of
announcing that he was quite prepared, though unwill-
ing, to make a sure and deadly spring. He shortly
after passed slowly from under the orange-tre3 to the
140
WANDERINGS IN
neighbouring wood on the side of a hill: as he moved
over a place bare of grass and weeds, he appeared to
be about eight feet long; it was he who had engaged
the attention of the birds, and made them heedless
of danger from another quarter: they flew away
on his retiring; one alone left his little life in the air,
destined to become a specimen, mute and motionless,
for the inspection of the curious in a far distant
clime.
'It was now the rainy season, the birds were moult-
ing; fifty-eight specimens of the handsomest of them
in the neighbourhood of Pernambuco had been collected,
and it was time to proceed elsewhere. The conveyance
to the interior was by horses; and this mode, together
'with the heavy rains, would expose preserved specimens
to almost certain damage. The journey to Maranham
by land would take at least forty days. The route was
not wild enough to engage the attention of an explorer,
or civilised enough to afford common comforts to a
traveller. By sea there were no opportunities, ex-
cept slave ships. As the transporting poor negroes
from port to port for sale pays well in Brazil, the
ships' decks are crowded with them. This would
not do.
Excuse here, benevolent reader, a small tribute of
gratitude to an Irish family, whose urbanity and good-
ness have long gained it the esteem and respect of all
SOUTH AMERICA.
141
ranks in Pernambuco. The kindness and attention I
received from Dennis Kearney, Esq., and Lis amiable
lady, will be remembered with gratitude to my dying"
day.
After wishing farewell to this hospitable family,
I embarked on board a Portuguese brig, with poor
accommodation, for Ca3renne in Guiana. The most
eligible bedroom was the top of a hen-coo}) on deck.
Even here, an unsavoury little beast, called bug, was
neither shy nor deficient in appetite.
The Portuguese seamen are famed for catching fish.
One evening, under the line, four sharks made their
appearance in the wake of the vessel. The sailors
caught them all.
On the fourteenth day after leaving Pernambuco,
the brig cast anchor oif the island of Cayenne. The
entrance is beautiful. To windward, not far off, there
are two bold wooded islands, called the Eather and
Mother; and near them are others, their children,
smaller, though as beautiful as their parents. Another
is seen a long way to leeward of the f anirly, and seems
as- if it had strayed from home, and cannot find its way
back. The Erench call it "Tenfant perdu." As you
pass the islands, the stately hills on the main, orna-
mented with ever-verdant foliage, show you that this
is by far the sublimest scenery on the sea-coast, from
the Amazons to the Oroonoque. On casting your eye
142
WANDERINGS IN
towards Dutch. Guiana, you will see that the mountains
become unconnected, and few in number, and long
before you reach Surinam the Atlantic wave washes a
flat and muddy shore.
Considerably to windward of Ca3renne, and about
twelve leagues from land, stands a stately and tower-
ing rock, called the Constable. As nothing grows on
it to tempt greedy and aspiring man to claim it as his
own, the sea-fowl rest and raise their offspring there.
The bird called the frigate is ever soaring round its
rugged summit. Hither the phaeton bends his rapid
flight, and flocks of rosy flamingos here defy the
fowler's cunning. All along the coast, opposite the
Constable, and indeed on every uncultivated part of it
to windward and leeward, are seen innumerable quanti-
ties of snow-white egrets, scarlet curlews, spoonbills,
and flamingos.
Cayenne is capable of being a noble and productive
colony. At present it is thought to be the poorest on
the coast of G-uiana. Its estates are too much separated
one ~from the other by immense tracts of forest; and
the revolutionary war, like a cold eastern wind, has
chilled their zeal and blasted their best expecta-
tions.
The clove-tree, the cinnamon, pepper, and nutmeg,
and many other choice spices and fruits of the eastern
and Asiatic regions, produce abundantly in Cayenne.
SOUTH AMERICA.
• 143
The town itself is prettily laid out, and was once?
well fortified. They tell you it might easily have been
defended against the invading force of the two united
nations; but Yictor Hugues, its governor, ordered the
tri-coloured Hag to be struck; and ever since that day
the standard' of Braganza has waved on the ramparts
of Cayenne.
He who has received humiliations from the hand of
this haughty, iron-hearted governor, may see him now
in Cayenne, stripped of all his revolutionary honours,
broken down and ruined, and under arrest in his own
house. He has four accomplished daughters, respected
by the whole town. Towards the close of day,
when the sun's rays are no longer oppressive, these
much-pitied ladies are seen walking up and down the
balcony with their aged parent, trying, by their kind
and filial attention, to remove the settled gloom from
his too guilty brow.
This was not the time for a traveller to enjoy
Cayenne. The hospitality of the inhabitants was the-
same as ever, but they had lost their wonted gaiety im
public, and the stranger might read in their counte-
nances, as the recollection of recent humiliations and
misfortunes every now and then kept breaking in upon
them, that they were still in sorrow for their fallen
country: the victorious hostile cannon of Waterloo still
sounded in their ears: their Emperor was a prisoner
144
WANDERINGS IN
^amongst the hideous rocks of St. Helena; and many a
Frenchman who had fought and bled for France was
now amongst them begging for a little support to pro-
long a life which would be forfeited on the parent soil.
To add another handful to the cypress and wormwood
already scattered amongst these polite colonists, they
had just received orders from the court of Janeiro to
put on deep mourning for six months, and half-mourn-
ing for as many more, on account of the death of the
Queen of Portugal.
After a day's journey in the interior is the celebrated
national plantation. This spot was judiciously chosen,
for it is out of the reach of enemies' cruisers. It is
called La Gabrielle. No plantation in the western
world can vie with La Gabrielle. Its spices are of the
choicest kind; its soil particularly favourable to them;
its arrangements beautiful; and its directenr, Monsieur
Martin, a botanist of first-rate abilities. This inde-
fatigable naturalist ranged through the East, under a
royal commission, in quest of botanical knowledge;
and during his stay in the western regions has sent
over to Europe from twenty to twenty-five thousand
specimens in botany and zoology. La Gabrielle is on
3i far-extending range of woody hills. Figure to your-
self a hill in the shape of a bowl reversed, with the
"buildings on the top of it, and you will have an idea of
■the appearance of La Gabrielle. You approach the
SOUTH AMEEICA.
145
house through a noble avenue, five hundred toises long,
of the choicest tropical fruit-trees, planted with the
greatest care and judgment; and should you chance
to stray through it after sunset, when the clove-trees
are in blossom, you would fancy yourself in the Idalian
groves, or near the banks of the Nile, where they were
burning the finest incense as the Queen of Egypt
passed.
On La G-abrielle there are twenty-two thousand
clove-trees in full bearing. They are planted thirty
feet asunder. Their lower branches touch the ground.
In general the trees are topped at five-and-twenty feet
high; though you will see some here towering up above
sixty. The black pepper, the cinnamon, and nutmeg
are also in great abundance here, and very productive.
While the stranger views the spicy groves of La
Gabrielle, and tastes the most delicious fruits which
liave originally been imported hither from all parts of
the tropical world, he will thank the Government which
has supported, and admire the talents of the gentleman
who has raised to its present grandeur, this noble collec-
tion of useful fruits. There is a large nursery attached
to La Gabrielle, where plants of all the different
species are raised and distributed gratis to those
colonists who wish to cultivate them.
~Noi far from the banks of the river Oyapoc, to
windward of Cayenne, is a mountain which contains an
146
WANDERINGS IN
immense cavern. Here the cock-of-the-rock is plenti-
ful. He is about the size of a fantail-pigeon, his colour
a bright orange, and his wings and tail appear as
though fringed; his head is ornamented with a superb
double-feathery crest, edged with purple. He passes
the day amid gloomy damps and silence, and only
issues out for food a short time at sunrise and sunset.
He is of the gallinaceous tribe. The South-American
Spaniards call him "gallo del Rio Negro" (cock of
the Black River), and suppose that he is only to be met
with in the vicinity of that far-inland stream; but he
is common in the interior of Demerara, amongst the
huge rocks in the forests of Macoushia; and he has-
been shot south of the line, in the captainship of
Para.
The bird called by Buffon grand gobemouche has
never been found in Denierara, although very common
in Cayenne. He is not quite so large as the jackdaw,
and is entirely black, except a large spot under the
throat, which is a glossy purple.
Tou may easily sail from Cayenne to the river
Surinam in two days. Its capital, Paramaribo, is-
handsome, rich, and populous: hitherto it has been
considered by far the finest town in Guiana; but
probably the time is not far off when the capital of
Dernerara may claim the prize of superiority. Tou
may enter a creek above Paramaribo, and travel
SOUTH AMERICA.
147
through the interior of Surinam, till you come to the
Nacari, which is close to the large river Coryntin.
When you have passed this river, there is a good pub-
lic road to New Amsterdam, the capital of Berbice.
On viewing New Amsterdam, it will immediately
strike you that something or other has intervened to
prevent its arriving at that state of wealth and conse-
quence for which its original plan shows it was once
intended. What has caused this stop in its progress
to the rank of a fine and populous city remains for
those to find out who are interested in it; certain it is
that New Amsterdam has been languid for some years,
and now the tide of commerce seems ebbing fast from
the shores of Berbice.
Gay and blooming* is the sister colony of Demerara.
Perhaps, kind reader, thou hast not forgot that it was
from Stabroek, the capital of Demerara, that the
adventurer set out, some years ago, to reach the Portu-
guese frontier fort, and collected the wourali-poison.
It was not intended, when this second sally was planned
in England, to have visited Stabroek again by the
route here described. The plan was to have ascended
the Amazons from Para and got into the E-io NVgi-o,
and from thence to have returned towards the source
of the Essequibo, in order to examine the crystal
mountains, and look once more for Lake Pariina, or
the White Sea; but on arriving at Cayenne, the
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current was miming with such amazing rapidity to
leeward, that a Portuguese sloop, which had been
beating up towards Para for four weeks, was then
only half-way. Finding, therefore, that a beat to the
Amazons would be long, tedious, and even uncertain,
and aware that the season for procuring birds with fine
plumage had already set in, I left Cayenne in an
American ship for Paramaribo, went through the
interior to the Coryntin, stopped a few days in New
Amsterdam, and proceeded to Demerara. If, gentle
reader, thy patience be not already worn out, and thy
eyes half closed in slumber, by perusing the dull
adventures of this second sally, perhaps thou wilt
pardon a line or two on Demerara; and then we will
retire to its forests, to collect and examine the economy
of its most rare and beautiful birds, and give the world
a new mode of preserving them.
Stabroek, the capital of Demerara, has been rapidly
increasing for some years back; and if prosperity go
hand in hand wfth the present enterprising spirit,
Stabroek, ere long, will be of the first colonial con-
sideration. It stands on the eastern bank at the mouth
of the Demerara, and enjoys all the advantages of the
refreshing sea-breeze; the streets are spacious, well-
bricked, and elevated, the trenches clean, the bridges
, excellent, and the houses handsome. Almost every
commodity and luxury of London may be bought in
SOUTH AMERICA.
149
the shops at Stabroek; its market wants better regula-
tions. The hotels are commodious, clean, and well
attended. Denierara boasts as fine and well-disciplined
militia as any colony in the western world.
The court of justice, where, in times of old, the
bandage was easily removed from the eyes of the
goddess, and her scales thrown out of equilibrium,
now rises in dignity under the firmness, talents, and
urbanity of Mr. President Rough.
The plantations have an appearance of high culti-
vation; a tolerable idea may be formed of their value
when you know that last }rear Demerara numbered
seventy-two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine
slaves. They made about forty-four million pounds
of sugar, near two million gallons of rum, above eleven
million pounds of coffee, and three million eight
hundred and nineteen thousand five hundred and twelve
pounds of cotton; the receipt into the public chest was
five hundred and fifty-three thousand nine hundred and
fifty-six guilders; the public expenditure, four hun-
dred and fifty-one thousand six hundred and three
guilders.
Slavery can never be defended; he whose heart is
not of iron can never wish to be able to defend it:
while he heaves a sigh for the poor negro in captivity,
he wishes from his soul that the traffic had been stifled
in its birth; but, unfortunately, the Governments of
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Europe nourislied it, and now that they are exerting
themselves to do away the evil, and ensure liberty to
the sons of Africa, the situation of the plantation slaves
is depicted as truly deplorable, and their condition
wretched. It is not so. A Briton's heart, proverbially
kind and generous, is not changed by climate, or its
streams of compassion dried up by the scorching heat
of a Demerara sun; he cheers his negroes in labour,
comforts them in sickness, is kind to them in old age,
and never forgets that they are his fellow-creatures.
Instances of cruelty and depravity certainly occur
here as well as all the world over: but the edicts of the
colonial Government are well calculated to prevent
them; and the British planter, except here and there
one, feels for the wrongs done to a poor ill-treated
slave, and shows that his heart grieves for him by
causing immediate redress, and preventing a repetition.
Long may ye flourish, peaceful and liberal inhabi-
tants of Demerara! Tour doors are ever open to
harbour the harbourless; your purses never shut to the
wants of the distressed: many a ruined fugitive from
the Oroonoque will bless your kindness to him in the
hour of need, when, flying from the woes of civil dis-
cord, without food or raiment, he begged for shelter
underneath your roof. The poor sufferer in Trinidad,
who lost his all in the devouring flames, will remember
your charity to his latest moments. The traveller, as
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151
lie leaves jour port, casts a longing lingering look
behind; your attentions, jour hospitality, jour pleas-
antrj and mirth, are uppermost in his thoughts; your
prosperity is close to his heart. Let us now, gentle
reader, retire from the busy scenes of man, and journey
on towards the wilds in quest of the feathered tribe.
Leave behind you your high-seasoned dishes, your
wines and your delicacies; carry nothing but what
is necessary for your own comfort and the object
in view, and depend upon the skill of an Indian, or your
own, for fish and game. A sheet, about twelve feet
long, ten wide, painted, and with loop-holes on each
side, will be of great service; in a few minutes you can
suspend it betwixt two trees in the shape of a roof.
Under this, in your hammock, you may defy the pelting
shower, and sleep heedless of the dews of night. A
hat, a shirt, and a light pair of trousers, will be all the
raiment you require. Custom will soon teach you to
tread lightly and barefoot on the little inequalities of
ground, and show you how to pass on, un wounded,
amid the mantling briers.
Snakes in these wilds are certainly an annoyance,
though perhaps more in imagination than reality: for
you must recollect that the serpent is never the first to
offend; his poisonous fang was not given him for con-
quest: he never inflicts a wound with it but to defend
existence. Provided you walk cautiously, and do not
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absolutely touch him, you may pass in safety close by
him. As he is often coiled up on the ground, and
amongst the branches of the trees above you, a degree
of circumspection is necessary, lest you unwarily disturb
him.
Tigers are too few, and too apt to fly before the
noble face of man, to require a moment of your atten-
tion.
The bite of the most noxious of the insects, at the
very worst, only causes a transient fever, with a degree
of pain more or less.
Birds in general, with few exceptions, are not com-
mon in the very remote parts of the forest. The sides
of rivers, lakes, and creeks, the borders of savannas,
the old abandoned habitations of Indians and wood-
cutters, seem to be their favourite haunts.
Though least in size, the glittering mantle of the
humming-bird entitles it to the first place in the list of
the birds of the New World. It may truly be called the
Bird of Paradise; and had it existed in the Old World,
it -would have claimed the title instead of the bird
which has now the honour to bear it. See it darting
through the air almost as quick as thought!—now it is
within a yard of your face !—in an instant gone!—now
it flutters from flower to flower to sip the silver dew—
it is now a ruby—now a topaz—now an emerald—now
all burnished gold! It would be arrogant to pretend
SOUTH AMERICA.
153
to describe this winged gem of nature after Buffion's
elegant description of it.
Cayenne and Demerara produce the same humming-
birds. Perhaps you would wish to know something of
their haunts. Chiefly in the months of July and
August the tree called hois immortel, Yery common in
Demerara, bears abundance of red blossom, which stays
on the tree some weeks; then it is that most.of the
different species of humming-birds are very plentiful.
The wild red sage is also their favourite shrub, and
they buzz like bees around the blossom of the wallaba-
tree. Indeed, there is scarce a flower in the interior,
or on the sea-coast, but what receives frequent visits
from one or other of the species.
On entering the forests, on the rising land in the
interior, the blue and green, the smallest brown, no
bigger than the bumblebee, with two long feathers in
the tail, and the little forked-tail purple-throated
humming-birds, glitter before you in ever-changing
attitudes. One species alone never shows his beauty to
the sun; and were it not for his lovely shining colours,
you might almost be tempted to class him with the
goatsuckers on account of his habits. He is the largest
of all the humming-birds, and is all red and changing
gold-green, except the head, which is black. He has
two long feathers in the tail, which cross each other,
and these have gained him the name of karabimiti, or
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ara humming-bird, from the Indians. You will never
find him on the sea-coast, or where the river is salt, or
in the heart of the forest, unless fresh water be there.
He keeps close by the side of woody fresh-water rivers
and dark and lonely creeks. He leaves his retreat
before sunrise to feed on the insects over the water; he
returns to it as soon as the sun's rays cause a glare of
light, is sedentary all day long, and comes out again
for a short time after sunset. He builds his nest on a
twig over the water in the unfrequented creeks; it
looks like tanned cow-leather.
As you advance towards the mountains of Demerara,
other species of humming-birds present themselves
before )rou. It seems to be an erroneous opinion that
the humming-bird lives entirely on honey-dew. Almost
every flower of the tropical climate contains insects of
one kind or other; now, the humming-bird is most
busy about the flowers an hour or two after sunrise
and after a shower of rain, and it is just at this time
that the insects come out to the edge of the flower in
order that the sun's rays may dry the nocturnal dew
and rain which they have received. On opening the
stomach of the humming-bird, dead insects are almost
always found there.
Next to the humming-birds, the cotingas display the
gayest plumage. They are of the order of passeres,
and you number five species betwixt the sea-coast and
SOUTH AMERICA.
155
the rock Saba. Perhaps the scarlet cotinga is the
richest of the five, and is one of those birds which are
found in the deepest recesses of the forest. His crown
is flaming red; to this abruptly succeeds a dark shining
brown, reaching half-way down the back : the remainder
of the back, the rump, and tail, the extremity of which
is edged with black, are a lively red; the belly is a
somewhat lighter red; the breast, reddish-black; the
wings, brown. He has no song, is solitary, and utters
a monotonous whistle which sounds like " quet." He
is fond of the seeds of the hitia-tree, and those of the
siloabali and bastard-siloabali trees, which ripen in
December, and continue on the trees for about two
months. He is found throughout the year in Demerara;
still nothing is known of his incubation. The Indians
all agree in telling you that they have never seen his
nest.
The purple-breasted cotinga has the throat and breast
of a deep purple, the wings and tail black, and all the
rest of the body a most lively shining blue.
The purple-throated continga has black wings and
tail, and every other part a light and glossy blue, save
the throat, which is purple.
The pompadour cotinga is entirely purple, except
his wings, which are white, their four first feathers
tipped with brown. The great coverts of the wings
are stiff, narrow, and pointed, being shaped quite
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WANDERINGS IN
different from those of any other bird. When yon
are betwixt this bird and the snn in his flight, he
appears uncommonly brilliant. He makes a hoarse
noise, which sounds like " wallababa." Hence his name
amongst the Indians.
None of these three cotingas have a song. They
feed on the hitia, siloabali, and bastard-siloabali seeds,
the wild guava, the fig, and other fruit trees of the
forest. They are easily shot in these trees during the
months of December, January, and part of February.
The greater part of them disappear after this, and
probably retire far away to breed. Their nests have
never been found in Denierara.
The fifth species is the celebrated campanero of the
Spaniards, called dara by the'Indians and bell-bird by
the English. He is about the size of the jay. His
plumage is white as snow. On his forehead rises a
spiral tube nearly three inches long. It is jet-black,
dotted all over with small white feathers. It has a
communication with the palate, and when filled with
air, looks like a spire; when empty, it becomes pendu-
lous. His note is loud and clear, like the sound of a
bell, and may be heard at the distance of three miles.
In the midst of these extensive wilds, generally on the
dried top of an aged mora, almost out of gun reach,
you will see the camj>anero. No sound or song from
any of the winged inhabitants of the forest, not even
SOUTH AMERICA.
157
the clearly-pronounced "Whip-poor-Will," from the
goatsucker, causes such astonishment as the toll of the
campanero.
"With many of the feathered race, he pays the com-
mon tribute of a morning and an evening song; and
even when the meridian sun has shut in silence the
mouths of almost the whole of animated nature, the
campanero still cheers the forest. Tou hear his toll,
and then a pause for a minute, then another toll, and
then a pause again, and then a toll, and again a pause.
Then he is silent for six or eight minutes, and then
another toll, and so on. Actseon would stop in mid
chase, Maria would defer her evening song, and Orpheus
himself would drop his lute to listen to him, so sweet,
so novel, and romantic is the toll of the pretty snow-
white campanero. He is never seen to feed with the
other cotingas, nor is it known in what part of Guiana
he makes his nest.
While cotingas attract your attention by their
superior plumage, the singular form of the toucan
makes a lasting impression on your memory. There
are three species of toucans in Demerara, and three
diminutives, which may be called toucanets. The
largest of the first species frequents the mangrove-
trees on the sea-coast. He is never seen in the interior
till you reach Macoushia, where he is found in the
neighbourhood of the river Tacatou. The other two
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species are very common. They feed entirely on the
fruits of the forest, and though of the pie kind, never
kill the young of other birds or touch carrion. The
larger is called bouradi by the Indians (which means
"nose "), the other, scirou. They seem partial to each
other's company, and often resort to the same feeding
tree, and retire together to the same shady noon-day
retreat. They are very noisy in rainy weather at all
hours of the day, and in fair weather, at morn and eve.
The sound which the bouradi makes is like. the clear
yelping of a puppy dog*, and you fancy he says,
"pia-po-o-co," and thus the South American Spaniards
call him piapoco.
All the toucanets feed on the same trees on which
the toucan feeds, and every species of this family of
enormous bill lays its eggs in the hollow trees. They
are social, but not gregarious. Tou may sometimes
see eight or ten in company, and from this you would
suppose they are gregarious; but, upon a closer examina-
tion, you will find it has only been a dinner party,
which breaks up and disperses towards roosting-time.
Tou will be at a loss to conjecture for what ends
nature has overloaded the head of this bird with such
an enormous bill. It cannot be for the offensive, as
it has no need to wage war with any of the tribes of
animated nature; for its food is fruits and seeds, and
those are in superabundance throughout the whole
SOUTH AMERICA.
159
year in the regions where the toucan is found. It can
hardly be for the defensive, as the toucan is preyed
upon by no bird in South America, and were it obliged
to be at war, the texture of the bill is ill adapted to
give or receive blows, as you will see in dissecting it.
It cannot be for any particular protection to the tongue,
as the tongue is a perfect feather.
The flight of the toucan is by jerks; in the action
of flying it seems incommoded by this huge dispropor-
tioned feature, and the head seems as if bowed down
to the earth by it against its will; if the extraordinary
form and size of the bill expose the toucan to ridicule,
its colours make it amends. Were a specimen of each
species of the toucan presented to you, you would pro-
nounce the bill of the bouradi the most rich and
beautiful; on the ridge of the upper mandible a broad
stripe of most lovely yellow extends from the head to
the point; a stripe of the same breadth, though some-
what deeper yellow, falls from it at right angles next
the head down to the edge of the mandible; then follows
a black stripe, half as broad, falling at right angles from
the ridge, and running narrower along the edge to within
half an inch of the point. The rest of the mandible is
a deep bright red. The lower mandible has no yellow;
its black and red are distributed in the same manner
as on the upper one, with this difference, that there
is black about an inch from the point. The stripe
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corresponding to the deep yellow stripe on the upper
mandible is sky bine. It is worthy of remark that all
these brilliant colours of the bill are to be found in
the plumage of the body, and the bare skin round the
eye.
All these colours, except the blue, are inherent in the
horn; that part which appears blue is in reality trans-
parent white, and receives its colour from a thin piece
of blue skin inside. This superb bill fades in death,
and in three or four days' time has quite lost its
original colours.
Till within these few years no idea of the true
colours of the bill could be formed from the stuifed
toucans brought to Europe. About eight years ago,
while eating a boiled toucan, the thought struck me
that the colours in the bill of a preserved specimen
might be kept as bright as those in life. A series of
experiments proved this beyond a doubt. If you take
your penknife and cut away the roof of the upper
mandible, you will find that the space betwixt it and
the outer shell contains a large collection of veins,
and small osseous fibres running in all directions
through the whole extent of the bill. Clear away all
these with your knife, and you will Come to a substance
more firm than skim but of not so strong a texture as
the horn itself; cut this away also, and behind it is
discovered a thin and tender membrane: yellow where
SOUTH AMERICA.
161
it lias touched the yellow part of the horn, blue where
it has touched the red part, and black towards the
edge and point. When dried, this thin and tender
membrane becomes nearly black; as soon as it is cut
away, nothing remains but the outer horn, red and
yellow, and now become transparent. The under man-
dible must undergo the same operation. Great care
must be taken, and the knife used very cautiously
when you are cutting through the dilf erent parts close
to where the bill joins on to the head: if you cut
away too much, the bill drops olf; if you press too
hard, the knife comes through the horn; if you leave
too great a portion of the membrane, it appears
through the horn, and by becoming black when dried,
makes the horn appear black also, and has a bad effect.
Judgment, caution, skill, and practice will ensure
success.
■ You have now cleared the bill of all those bodies
whkh are the cause of its apparent fading; for, as has
been said before, these bodies dry in death, and become
quite discoloured, and appear so through the horn; and
reviewing the bill in this state,, you conclude that its
former bright colours are lost.
Something still remains to be done. You have
rendered the bill transparent by the operation, and that
transparency must be done away to make it appear
perfectly natural. Pound some clean chalk, and give
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162
WAKDEj&INGS IS
it enough water till it be o£ the consistency of tar;
add a proportion of gum-arabic to make it adhesive;
then take a camel-hair brush, and give the inside of
both mandibles a coat; apply a second when the first
is dry, then another, and a fourth to finish all. The
gum-arabic will prevent the chalk from cracking and
falling off. If you remember, there is a little space of
transparent white on the lower mandible which origin-
ally appeared blue, but which became transparent
white as soon as the thin piece of blue skin was
cut away; this must be painted blue inside. When
all this is completed, the bill will please you; it will
appear in its original colours. Probably your own
abilities will suggest a cleverer mode of operating
than the one here described. A small gouge would
assist the penknife, and render the operation less
difficult.
The houtou ranks high in beauty amongst the birds
of Demerara—his whole body is green, with a bluish
cast in the wings and tail; his crown, which he erects
at pleasure, consists of black in the centre, surrounded
with lovely blue of two different shades: he has a
triangular black spot, edged with blue, behind the
eye, extending to the ear; and on his breast a sable
tuft, consisting of nine feathers edged also with blue.
This bird seems to suppose that its beauty can be
increased by trimming the tail, which undergoes the
SOUTH AMERICA.
163
same operation as our hair in a barber's shop, only
with this difference, that it uses its own beak, which
is serrated, in lieu of a pair of scissors; as soon as
his tail is full grown, he begins about an inch from
the extremity of the two longest feathers in it, and
cuts away the we]) on both sides of the shaft, making
a gap about an inch long; both male and female
Adonise their tails in this manner, which gives them
a remarkable appearance amongst all other birds.
"While we consider the tail of the houtou blemished
and defective, were he to come amongst us he would
probably consider our heads, croj)ped and bald, in no
better light. He who wishes to observe this handsome
bird in his native haunts must be in the forest at the
morning's dawn. The houtou shuns the society of
man: the plantations and cultivated parts are too
much disturbed to engage it to settle there; the thick
and gloomy forests are the places preferred by the
solitary houtou. In those far-extending wilds, about
daybreak, you hear him articulate, in a distinct and
mournful tone, " Houtou, houtou/' Move cautiously on
to where the sound proceeds from, and you will see
him sitting in the underwood, about a couple of yards
from the ground, his tail moving up and down every
time he articulates "houtou." He lives on insects
and the berries amongst the underwood, and very
rarely is seen in the lofty trees, except the bastard-
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WANDERINGS IN
siloabali tree, tlie fruit of wliich is grateful to him.
He makes no nest, but rears his young in a hole in the
sand, generally on the side of a hill.
While in quest of the houtou you will now and
then fall in with the jay of Guiana, called by the
Indians ibibirou. Its forehead is black, the rest of
the head white; the throat and breast like the English
magpie: about an inch of the extremity of the tail
is white, the other part of it, together with the back
and wings, a greyish changing purple; the belly is
white: there are generally sis or eight of them in
company; they are shy and garrulous, and tarry a
very short time in one place; they are never seen in
the cultivated parts.
Through the whole extent of the forest, chiefly
from sunrise till nine o'clock in the morning, you
hear a sound of "Wow, wow, wow, wow." This is
the bird called boclora by the Indians. It is smaller
than the common pigeon, and seems, in some measure,
to partake of its nature; its head and breast are
blue; the back and rump somewhat resemble the
colour on the peacock's neck; its belly is a bright
yellow; the legs are so very short that it always ap-
pears as if sitting on the branch; it is as ill-adapted
for walking as the swallow; its neck, for above an
inch all round, is quite bare of feathers, but this de-
ficiency is not seen, for it always sits with its head
SOUTH AMEBIC A.
165
drawn in upon its shoulders: it sometimes feeds with
the cotingas on the guava and hitia trees; "but its
chief nutriment seems to be insects, and, like most
birds which follow this prey, its chaps are well armed
with bristles: it is found in Demerara at all times of
the year, and makes a nest resembling that of the
stock-dove. This bird never takes long nights, and
when it crosses a river or creek it goes by long
jerks.
The boclora is very unsuspicious, appearing quite
heedless of danger: the report of a gun within twenty
yards will not cause it to leave the branch on which it
is sitting, and you may often approach it so near as
almost to touch it with the end of your bow. Perhaps
there is no bird known whose feathers are so slightly
fixed to the skin as those of the boclora. After shoot- M
ing it, if it touch a branch in its descent, or if it drop
on hard ground, whole heaps of feathers fall off:; on
this account it is extremely hard to procure a specimen
for preservation. As soon as the skin is dry in the
joreserved specimen, the feathers become as well fixed
as those in any other bird.
Another species, larger than the boclora, attracts
much of your notice in these wilds; it is called cuia
by the Indians, from the sound of its voice; its habits
are the same as those of the boclora, but its colours
different; its head, breast, back, and rump are a
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WANDERINGS IN
shining, changing green; its tail not quite so bright; a
black bar runs across the tail towards the extremity;
and the outside feathers are partly white, as in the
boclora; its belly is entirely vermilion, a bar of white
separating it from the green on the breast.
There are diminutives of both these birds; they
have the same habits, with a somewhat different
plumage, and about half the size. Arrayed from head
to tail in a robe of richest sable hue, the bird called
rice-bird loves spots cultivated by the hand of man.
The woodcutter's house on the hills in the interior,
and the planter's habitation on the sea-coast, equally
attract this songless species of the order of pie, pro-
vided the Indian corn be ripe there. He is nearly of
the jackdaw's size, and makes his nest far away from
the haunts of men ; he may truly be called a blackbird:
independent of his plumage, his beak, inside and out,
his legs, his toes, and claws, are jet black.
Mankind, by clearing the ground, and sowing a
variety of seeds, induces many kinds of birds to leave
their native haunts and come and settle near him;
their little depredations on his seeds and fruits prove
that it is the property, and not the proprietor, which
has the attractions.
One bird, however, in Demerara, is not actuated by
selfish motives; this is the cassique; in size, he is
larger than the starling; he courts the society of man,
SOUTH AMERICA.
167
but disdains to live "by his labours. "When nature calls
for support, he repairs to the neighbouring forest, and
there partakes of the store of fruits and seeds which
she has produced in abundance for her aerial tribes.
When his repast is oyer, he returns to man, and pays
the little tribute which he owes him for his protection;
he takes' his station on a tree close to his house, and
there, for hours together, pours forth a succession of
imitative notes. His own song is sweet, but very
short. If a toucan be yelping in the neighbourhood,
he drops it, and imitates him. Then he will amuse his
protector with the cries of the different species of the
woodpecker; and when the sheep bleat, he will dis-
tinctly answer them. Then comes his own song again;
and if a puppy-dog or a Guinea-fowl interrupt him, he
takes them off: admirably, and by his different gestures
during the time, you would conclude that he enjoys the
sport.
The cassicpie is gregarious, and imitates any sound
he hears with such exactness, that he goes by no
other name than that of mocking-bird amongst the
colonists.
At breeding-time, a number of these pretty choristers
resort to a tree near the planter's house, and from its
outside branches weave their pendulous nests. So
conscious do they seem that they never give offence,
and so little suspicious are they of receiving any injury
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from man, that they will choose a tree within forty
yards from his house, and occupy the branches so low
down, that he may peep into the nests. A tree in
Waratilla creek affords a proof of this.
The proportions of the cassique are so fine, that he
may be said to be a model of symmetry in ornithology.
On each wing he has a bright yellow spot, and his
rump, belly, and half the tail are of the same colour.
All the rest of the body is black. His beak is the
colour of sulphur, but it fades in death, and requires
the same operation as the bill of the toucan to make it
keep its colours. Up the rivers, in the interior, there
is another cassique, nearly the same size, and of the
same habits, though not gifted with its powers of imi-
tation. Except in breeding time, you will see hundreds
of them retiring to roost, amongst the mocamoca-trees
and low shrubs on the banks of the Demerara, after
you pass the first island. They are not common on
the sea-coast. The rump of the cassique is a flaming-
scarlet. All the rest of the body is a rich glossy black.
His bill is sulphur colour. Tou may often see num-
bers of this species weaving their pendulous nests
on one side of a tree, while numbers of the other species
are busy in forming theirs on the opposite side of the
same tree. Though such near neighbours, the females
are never observed to kick up a row, or come to
blows!
SOUTH AMERICA.
169
Another species of cassique, as large as a crow, is
very common in the plantations. In the morning he
generally repairs to a large tree, and there, with his
tail spread over his back, and shaking his lowered
wings, he produces notes which, though they cannot be
said to amount to a song, still have something very
sweet and pleasing in them. He makes his nest in
the same form as the other cassiques. It is above four
feet long; and when you pass under the tree, which
often contains fifty or sixty of them, you cannot help
stopping to admire them as they wave to and fro, the
sport of every storm and breeze. The rump is chest-
nut; ten feathers of the tail are a fine yellow, the re-
maining two, which are the middle ones, are black, and
an inch shorter than the others. His bill is sulphur
colour; all the rest of the body black, with here and
there shades of brown. He has five or six long narrow
black feathers on the back of his head, which he erects
at pleasure.
There is one more species of cassique in Deinerara,
which always prefers the forest to the cultivated parts.
His economy is the same as that of the other cassiques.
He is rather smaller than the last described bird. His
body is greenish, and his tail and rump paler than those
of the former. Half of his beak is red.
Tou would not be long in the forests of Demerara
without noticing the woodpeckers. Tou meet with
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PANDERINGS IN
them feeding at all hours of the day. Well may they
do so. Were they to follow the example of most of
the other birds, and only feed in the morning and
evening, they would be often on short allowance, for
they sometimes have to labour three or four hours at
the tree before they get to their food. The sound
which the largest kind makes in hammering against
the bark of the tree is so loud, that you would never
suppose it to proceed from the efforts of a bird. You
would take it to be the woodman, with his axe, trying
by a sturdy blow, often repeated, whether the tree
were sound or not. There are fourteen species here;
the largest the size of a magpie, the smallest no bigger
than the wren. They are all beautiful; and the greater
part of them have their heads ornamented with a fine
crest, movable at pleasure.
It is said, if you once give a dog a bad name,
whether innocent or guilty, he never loses it; it sticks
close to him wherever he goes. He has many a kick
and many a blow to bear on account of it; and there is
nobody to stand up for him. The woodpecker is little
better off. The proprietors of woods in Europe have
long accused him of injuring their timber, by boring
holes in it, and letting in the water, which soon rots it.
The colonists in America have the same complaint
against him. Had he the power of speech, which
Ovid's birds possessed in days of yore, he could soon
SOUTH AMEBICA.
171
make a defence. u Mighty lord of the woods," he would
say to man, 11 why do yon wrongfully accuse me? why
do you hunt ine up and down to death for an imaginary
offence? I have never spoiled a leaf of your property,
much less your wood. Tour merciless shot strikes
me at the very time I am doing you a service. But
your short-sightedness will not let you see it, or your
pride is above examining closely the actions of so in-
significant a little bird as I am. If there be that spark of
feeling in your breast which they say man possesses, or
ought to possess, above all other animals, do a poor in-
jured creature a little kindness, and watch me in your
woods only for one day. I never wound your healthy
trees. I should perish for want in the attempt. The
sound bark would easily resist the force of my bill:
and were I even to pierce through it, there would be
nothing inside that I could fancy, or my stomach
digest. I often visit them, it is true, but a knock or
two convince me that I must go elsewhere for support;
and were you to listen attentively to the sound which
my bill causes, you would know whether I am upon a
healthy or an unhealthy tree. Wood and bark are not
my food. I live entirely upon the insects which have
already formed a lodgment in the distempered tree.
When the sound informs me that my pre}^ is there, I
labour for hours together till I get at it; and by con-
suming it, for my own support, I prevent its further
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WANDERINGS IN
depredations in that part. Thus I discover for you:
your hidden and unsuspected foe, which has been de-
vouring your wood in such secrecy, that you had not
the least suspicion it was there. The hole which I
make in order to get at the pernicious vermin will be
seen by you as you pass under the tree. I leave it as a
signal to tell you that your tree has already stood too
long. It is past its prime. Millions of insects, en-
gendered by disease, are preying upon its vitals. Ere-
long it will fall a log in useless ruins. Warned by
this loss, cut down the rest in time, and spare, O spare
the unoffending woodpecker."
In the rivers, and different creeks, you number six
species of the kingfisher. They make their nest in a
hole in the sand on the side of the bank. As there is
always plenty of foliage to protect them from the heat
of the sun, they feed at all hours of the day. Though
their plumage is prettily varied, still it falls far short of
the brilliancy displayed by the English kingfisher. This
little native of Britain would outweigh them altogether
in the scale of beauty.
A bird called jacamar is often taken for a king-
fisher, but it has no relationship to that tribe; it fre-
quently sits in the trees over the water, and as its beak
bears some resemblance to that of the kingfisher, this-
may probably account for its being taken for one; it
feeds entirely upon insects; it sits on a branch in
SOUTH AMEBICA.
173
motionless expectation, and as soon as a fly, butterfly,
or moth passes by, it darts at it, and returns to the
branch it had just left. It seems an indolent, seden-
tary bird, shunning the society of all others in the
forest. It never visits the plantations, but is found at
all times of the year in the woods. There are four
species of jacamar in Demerara • they are all beautiful;
the largest, rich and superb in the extreme. Its plu-
mage is of so fine a changing blue and golden green, that
it may be ranked with the choicest of the humming-
birds. Nature has denied it a song, but given a
costly garment in lieu of it. The smallest species of
jacamar is very common in the dry savannas. The
second size, all golden green on the back, must be
looked for in the wallaba forest. The third is found,
throughout the whole extent of these wilds; and the
fourth, which is the largest, frequents the interior,
where you begin to perceive stones in the ground.
When you have penetrated far into Macoushia, you
hear the pretty songster called troupiale pour forth a
variety of sweet and plaintive notes. This is the bird
which the Portuguese call the nightingale of G-uiana;
its predominant colours are rich orange and shining
black, arrayed to great advantage; his delicate and
well-shaped frame seems unable to bear captivity. The
Indians sometimes bring down troupiales to Stabroek,
but in a few months they languish and die in a cage.
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WANDERINGS IN
They 80011 become very familiar; and if you allow them
the liberty of the house, they live longer than in a cage,
and appear in better spirits; but, when you least expect
it, they drop down and die in epilepsy.
Smaller in size, and of colour not so rich and some-
what differently arranged, another species of troupiale
sings melodiously in Demerara. The woodcutter is
particularly favoured by him; for while the hen is
sitting on her nest, built in the roof of the woodcutter's
house, he sings for hours together close by: he prefers
the forests to the cultivated parts.
Tou would not grudge to stop for a few minutes, as
you are walking in the plantations, to observe a third
species of troupiale: his wings, tail, and throat are
black; all the rest of the body is a bright yellow.
There is something very sweet and plaintive in his
song, though much shorter than that of the troupiale
in the interior.
A fourth species goes in flocks from place to place
in the cultivated parts at the time the Indian corn is
ripe; he is all black, except the head and throat, which
are yellow; his attempt at song is not worth attending *
to.
Wherever there is a wild fig-tree ripe, a numerous
species of birds, called tangara, is sure to be on it.
There are eighteen beautiful species here. Their plum-
age is very rich and diversified; some of them boast
SOUTH AMERICA.
175
six separate colours; others have the blue, purple,
green, and black so kindly blended into each other,
that it would be impossible to mark their boundaries;
while others again exhibit them strong, distinct, and
abrupt: many of these tangaras have a fine song.
They seem to partake much of the nature of our
linnets, sparrows, and finches. Some of them are
fond of the plantations; others are never seen there,
preferring the wild seeds of the forest to the choicest
fruits planted by the hand of man.
On the same fig-trees to which they repair, and often
accidentally up and down the forest, you fall in with
four species of manikin. The largest is white and
black, with the feathers on the throat remarkably long;
the next in size is half red and half black; the third,
black, with a white crown; the fourth, black, with a
golden crown, and red feathers at the knee. The half
red and half black species is the scarcest. There is a
creek in the Demerara called Camouni. About ten
minutes from the mouth, you see a common-sized fig-
tree on your right-hand, as you ascend, hanging over
water; it bears a very small fig twice a year. When
its fruit is ripe, this manikin is on the tree from morn
till eve.
On all the ripe fig-trees in the forest you see the
bird called the small tiger-bird. Like some of our
belles and dandies, it has a gaudy vest to veil an ill-
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WANDERINGS IN
shaped body: the throat, and part of the head, are a
bright red; the breast and belly have black spots on
a yellow ground; the wings are a dark green, black,
and white; and the rump and tail black and green.
Like the manikin, it has no song: it depends solely
upon a showy garment for admiration.
Devoid, too, of song, and in a still superber garb,
the yawaraciri comes to feed on the same tree. It
has a bar like black velvet from the eyes to the beak;
its legs are yellow; its throat, wings, and tail black;
all the rest of the body a charming blue. Chiefly in
the dry savannas, and here and there accidentally in
the forest, you see a songless yawaraciri still lovelier
than the last: his crown is whitish blue, arrayed like
a coat of mail; his tail is black, his wings black and
yellow, legs red, and the whole body a glossy blue.
Whilst roving through the forest, ever and anon you
see individuals of the wren sj)ecies busy amongst the
fallen leaves, or seeking insects at the roots of the
trees.
Here, too, you find six or seven species of small birds,
whose backs appear to be overloaded with silky plum-
age. One of these, with a chestnut breast, smoke-
eoloured back, tail red, white feathers like horns on his
head, and white narrow-pointed feathers under the jaw,
feeds entirely upon ants. When a nest of large, light
brown ants emigrates, one following the other in
SOUTH AMERICA,
177
meandering lines above a mile long, you see tliis bird
watching them, and every now and then picking them
up. When they disappear he is seen no more: perhaps
this is the only kind of ant he is fond of; when these
ants are stirring, you are sure to find him near them.
You cannot well mistake the ant after you have once
been in its company, for its sting is very severe, and
you can hardly shoot the bird, and pick it up, without-
having five or six upon you.
Parrots and paroquets are very numerous here, and
of many diiferent kinds. You will know when they
are near you in the forest, not only by the noise they
make, but also by the fruits and seeds which they let
fall while they are feeding.
The hia-hia parrot, called in England the "parrot of
the sun," is very remarkable: he can erect at pleasure a
fine radiated circle of tartan feathers quite round the
back of his head from jaw to jaw. The fore-part of
his head is white: his back, tail, and wings green;
and his breast and belly tartan.
Superior in size and beauty to every parrot of South
America, the ara will force you to take your eyes from
the rest of animated nature and gaze at him: his com-
manding strength, the flaming scarlet of his body, the
lovely variety of red, yellow, blue, and green in his
wings, the extraordinary length of his scarlet and blue
tail, seem all to join and demand for him the title of
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WANDERINGS IN
"emperor of all the parrots.'5 He is scarce in Demerara
till you reach the confines of the Macouski country;
there he is in vast abundance; he mostly feeds on trees
of the palm species. When the coucourite-trees have
ripe fruit on them, they are covered with this magnifi-
cent parrot: he is not shy or wary; you may take your
blow-pipe and quiver of poisoned arrows, and kill more
than you are able to carry back to your hut. They are
very vociferous, and, like the common parrots, rise up
in bodies towards sunset, and fly two and two to their
place of rest. It is a grand sight in ornithology to see
thousands of aras flying over your head, low enough
to let you have a full view of their flaming mantle.
The Indians find their flesh very good, and the feathers
serve for ornaments in their head-dresses. They breed
in the holes of trees, are easily reared and tamed, and
learn to speak pretty distinctly.
Another species frequents the low lands of Deme-
rara. He is. nearly the size of the scarlet ara, but much
inferior in plumage. Blue and yellow are his pre-
dominant colours.
Along the creeks and river sides, and in the wet
savannas, six species of the bittern will engage your
attention. They are all handsome. The smallest is not
so large as the English water-hen.
In the savannas, too, you will sometimes surprise
the snow-white egrette, whose back is adorned with
SOUTH AMERICA.
179
the plumes from which it takes its naiiiti. Here, too,
tlie spur-winged water-lien, the blue and green water-
hen, and two other species of ordinary xolumage are
found. While in quest of these, the blue heron, the
large and small brown heron, the boat-bill, and Mus-
covy duck now and then rise up before you.
When the sun has sunk in the western woods, no
longer agitated by the breeze; when you can only see
a straggler or two of the feathered tribe hastening to
join its mate, already at its roosting-place, then it is
that the goatsucker comes out of the forest, where it
has sat all day long in slumbering ease, unmindful of
the gay and busy scenes around it. Its eyes are too
delicately formed to bear the light, and thus it is forced
to shun the flaming face of day, and wait in patience
till night invites him to partake of the pleasures her
dusky presence brings.
The harmless, unoffending goatsucker, from the time
of Aristotle down to the present day, has been in dis-
grace with man. Father has handed down to son,
and author to author, that this nocturnal thief subsists
by milking the flocks. Poor injured little bird of
night, how sadly hast thou suffered, and how foul a
stain has inattention to facts put upon thy character!
Thou hast never robbed man of any part of his pro-
perty, nor deprived the Md of a drop of milk.
When the moon shines bright you may have a fair
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WANDERINGS IN
opportunity* of examining the goatsucker. Ton will
see it close by the cows, goats, and sheep, jumping up
every now and then under their bellies. Approach a
little nearer—he is not shy, "he fears no danger, for
he knows no sin.1' See how the nocturnal flies are
tormenting the herd, and with what dexterity he springs
up and catches them, as fast as they alight on the belly,
legs, and udder of the animals. Observe how quiet
they stand, and how sensible they seem of his good
offices, for they neither strike at him, nor hit him with
their tail, nnr tread on him, nor try to drive him away
- as an uncivil intruder. Were you to dissect him, and
inspect his stomach, you would find no milk there. It
is full of the flies which have been annoying the herd.
The prettily-mottled plumage of the goatsucker,
like that of the owl, wants the lustre which is observed
in the feathers of the birds of day. This at once
marks him as a lover of the pale moon's nightly beams.
There are nine species here. The largest appears
nearly the size of the English wood-owl. Its cry is so
remarkable that, having once heard it, you will never
forget it. When night reigns over these immeasurable
wilds, whilst lying in your hammock, you will hear
this goatsucker lamenting like one in deep distress.
A stranger would never conceive it to be the cry of a
bird. He would say it was the departing voice of a
midnight-murdered victim, or the last wailing of Mobe
SOUTH AMEEJCA.
181
for lier poor children, before she was turned into stone.
Suppose yourself in hopeless sorrow, begin with a high
loud note, and pronounce, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,"
each note lower and lower, till the last is scarcely
Jieard, pausing a moment or two betwixt every note,
and you will have some idea of the moaning of the
largest goatsucker in Demerara.
.Four other species of the goatsucker articulate some
words so distinctly, that they have received their
names from the sentences they utter, and absolutely
bewilder the stranger on his arrival in these parts.
The most common one sits down close by your door,
and flies and alights three or four yards before ^ou.
as you walk along the road, crying, "Who-are-you,
who-who-who-are-you?" Another bids you, "Work-
away, work-work-work-away." A third cries mourn-
fully, "Willy-come-go. Willy-Willy-Willy-come-go.''
And high up in the country, a fourth tells you to
"Whip-poor-Will. Whip-whip-whip-poor-Will."
Tou will never persuade the negro to destroy these
birds, or get the Indian to let fly his arrow at them.
They are birds of omen and reverential dread. Jumbo,
the demon of Africa, has them under his command;
and they equally obey the Tabahou, or Demerara
Indian devil. They are the receptacles for departed
souls, who come back again to earth, unable to rest
for crimes done in their days of nature; or they are
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WANDERINGS IN
expressly sent by J umbo, or Yabahou, to haunt cruel
and hard-hearted masters, and retaliate injuries re-
ceived from them. If the largest goatsucker chance
to cry near the white man's door, sorrow and grief will
soon be inside; and they expect to see the master waste
away with a slow consuming sickness. If it be heard
close to the negro's or Indian's hut, from that night
misfortune sits brooding over it; and they await the
event in terrible suspense.
You will forgive the poor Indian of G-uiana for this.
He knows no better; he has nobody to teach him.
But shame it is that, in our own civilised country, the
black cat and broonistaff: should be considered as con-
ductors to and from the regions of departed spirits.
Many years ago I knew poor harmless Mary; old
age had marked her strongly, just as he will mark you
and me, should we arrive at her years and carry the
weight of grief which bent her double. The old men
of the village said she had been very pretty in her
youth; and nothing could be seen more comely than
Mary when she danced on the green. He who had
gained her heart left her for another, less fair, though
richer than Mary. From that time she became sad
and pensive; the rose left her cheek, and she was never
more seen to dance round the May-pole on the green:
her expectations were blighted; she became quite in-
different to everything around her, and seemed to think
SOUTH AMERICA.
183
of nothing but how she could best attend her mother,
who was lame, and not long for this life. Her mother
had begged a black kitten from some boys who were
going to drown it, and in her last illness she told Mary
to be kind to it for her sake.
When age and want had destroyed the symmetry of
Mary's fine form, the village began to consider her as
one who had dealings with spirits; her cat confirmed
the suspicion. If a cow died, or a villager wasted away
with an unknown complaint, Mary and her cat had it
to answer for. Her broom sometimes served her for a
walking-stick; and if ever she supported her tottering
frame with it as far as the May-pole, where once, in
youthful bloom and beauty, she had attracted the eyes
of all, the boys would surround her and make sport of
her, while her cat had neither friend nor safety beyond
the cottage wall. Nobody considered it cruel or un-
charitable to torment a witch; and it is probable, long-
before this, that cruelty, old age, and want have worn
her out, and that both poor Mary and her cat have
ceased to be.
Would you wish to pursue the different species of
game, well stored and boundless is your range in
Demerara. Here no one dogs you, and afterwards
clandestinely inquires if you have a hundred a year in
land to entitle you to enjoy such patrician sport. Here
no saucy intruder asks if you have taken out a licence,
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"WANDERINGS IN
"by virtue of which you are allowed to "kill the birds
which have bred upon your own property. Here
"You are as free as when God first made man,
Ere the vile laws of servitude began,
And wild in woods the noble savage raD."
Before the morning's dawn you hear a noise in the
forest, which sounds like "duraquaura " often repeated.
This is the partridge, a little smaller, and differing
somewhat in colour from the English partridge; it
lives entirely in the forest, and probably the young-
brood very soon leave their parents, as you never flush
more than two birds in the same place, and in general
only one.
Abo at the same hour, and sometimes even at mid-
night, you hear two species of maam, or tinamou, send
forth their long and plaintive whistle from the depth
of the forest. The flesh of both is delicious. The
largest is plumper, and almost equals in size the black
cock of Northumberland. The quail is said to be here,
though rare.
The hannaquoi, which some have compared to the
pheasant, though with little reason, is very common.
Here are also two species of the powise, or hocco,
and two of the small wild turkeys called maroudi;
they feed, on the ripe fruits of the forest, and are
found in all directions in these extensive wilds. Ton
SOUTH AMERICA.
185
will admire the horned screamer as a stately and
majestic bird: lie is almost the size of the turkey
cock; on his head is a long slender horn, and each
wing is armed with a strong, sharp, triangular spur,
an inch long.
Sometimes you will fall in with flocks of two or
three hundred waracabas, or trumpeters, called so
from the singular noise they produce. Their breast
is adorned with beautiful changing blue and purple
feathers; their head and neck like velvet; their wings
and back grey, and belly black. They run with great
swiftness, and, when domesticated, attend their master
in his walks with as much apparent affection as his
dog. They have no spurs, but still, such is their high
spirit and activity, that the)r browbeat every dunghill
fowl in the yard, and force the Guinea birds, dogs, and
turkeys to own their superiority.
If, kind and gentle reader, thou shouldst ever visit
these regions with an intention to examine their pro-
ductions, perhaps the few observations contained in
these Wanderings may be of service to thee; excuse
their brevity; more could have been written, and each
bird more particularly described, but it would have
been pressing too hard upon thy time and patience.
Soon after arriving in these parts, thou wilt find
that the species here enumerated are only as a handful
from a well-stored granary. Nothing has been said
i
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WANDERINGS IN
of the eagles, the falcons, the hawks, and shrikes;
nothing of the different species of vultures, the king
of which is very handsome, and seems to be the only
bird which claims regal honours from a surrounding
tribe. It is a fact beyond all dispute, that when the
scent of carrion has drawn together hundreds of the
common vultures, they all retire from the carcase as
soon as the king of the vultures makes his appearance.
When his majesty has satisfied the cravings of his
royal stomach with the choicest bits from the most
stinking and corrupted parts, he generally retires to a
neighbouring tree, and then the common vultures return
in crowds to gobble down his leavings. The Indians,
as well as the whites, have observed this, for when one
of them, who has learned a little English, sees the
king, and wishes you to have a proper notion of the
bird, he says, "There is the governor of the carrion
crows."
ISTow, the Indians have never heard of a personage
in Demerara higher than that of governor; and the
colonists, through a common mistake, call the vultures
carrion crows. Hence the Indian, in order to express
the dominion of this bird over the common vultures,
tells you he is governor of the carrion crows. The
Spaniards have also observed it; for, through all the
Spanish Main, he is called "rey de zamuros"—king
of the vultures. The many species of owls, too, have
i
SOUTH AMERICA.
187
not been noticed; and no mention made of the
Columbine tribe. The prodigious variety of water-
fowl on the sea-shore has been but barely hinted at.
There, and on the borders and surface of the inland
waters, in the marshes and creeks, besides the flamingos,
scarlet curlew, and spoonbills, already mentioned,
will be found greenish-brown curlews, sandpipers,
rails, coots, gulls, pelicans, jabirus, nandapoas, crabiers,.
snipes, plovers, ducks, geese, cranes, and anhingas,
most of them in vast abundance; some frequenting
only the sea-coast, others only the interior, according
to their different natures; all worthy the attention of
the naturalist, all worthy of a place in the cabinet of
the curious.
Should thy comprehensive genius not confine itself
to birds alone, grand is the appearance of other objects
all around. Thou art in a land rich in botany and
mineralogy, rich in zoology and entomology. Anima-
tion will glow in thy looks, and exercise will brace thy
frame in vigour. The very time of thy absence from
the tables of heterogeneous luxury will be profitable to
thy stomach, perhaps already sorely drenched with
Londo-Parisian sauces, and a new stock of health will
bring thee an appetite to relish the wholesome food of
the chase; never-failing sleep will wait on thee at the
time she comes to soothe the rest of animatod nature;
and, ere the sun's rays appear in the horizon, thou wilt
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spring from thy hammock fresh as April lark. Be
convinced, also, that the dangers and difficulties which
are generally supposed to accompany the traveller in
his journey through distant regions, are not half so
numerous or dreadful as they are commonly thought
to be.
The youth who incautiously reels into the lobby of
Drury Lane, after leaving the table sacred to the god
of wine, is exposed to more certain ruin, sickness, and
decay than he who wanders a whole year in the wilds
of Demerara. But this will never be believed; be-
cause the disasters arising from dissipation are so
common and frequent in civilised life, that man be-
comes quite habituated to them; and sees daily vic-
tims sink into the tomb long before their time, without
ever once taking alarm at the causes which precipitated
them headlong into.it.
But the dangers which a traveller exposes himself
to in foreign parts are novel, out-of-the-way things to
a man at home. The remotest apprehension of meet-
ing a tremendous tiger, of being carried off by a flying
dragon, or having his bones picked by a famished
cannibal—oh, that makes him shudder. It sounds in
his ears like the bursting of a bomb-shell. Thank
Heaven, he is safe by his own fireside!
Prudence and resolution ought to be the traveller's
constant companions. The first will cause him to
SOUTH AMERICA.
189
avoid a number of snares which he will find in the
path as he journeys on; and the second will always
lend a hand to assist him, if he has unavoidably got
entangled in them. The little distinctions which have
been shown him at his own home ought to be for-
gotten when he travels over the world at large; for
strangers know nothing of his former merits, and it
is necessary that they should witness them before they
pay him the tribute which he was wont to receive
within his own doors. Thus, to be kind and affable to
those we meet, to mix in their amusements, to pay a
compliment or two to their manners and customs, to
respect their elders, to give a little to their distressed
and needy, and to feel, as it were, at home amongst
them, is the sure way to enable you to pass merrily on,
and to find other comforts as sweet and palatable as
those which you were accustomed to partake of
amongst your friends and acquaintance in your own
native land.
We will now ascend in fancy on Icarian wing, and
take a view of Guiana in general. See an immense
plain, betwixt two of the largest rivers in the world,
level as a bowling-green, save at Cayenne, and covered
with trees along the coast quite to the Atlantic wave,
except where the plantations make a little vacancy
amongst the foliage.
Though nearly in the centre of the torrid zone, the
190
WANDERINGS IN
sun's rays are not so intolerable as might be imagined,
on account of the perpetual verdure and refreshing
north-east breeze. See what numbers of broad and
rapid rivers intersect it in their journey to the ocean,
and thai/ not a stone or a pebble is to be found on their
banks, or in any part of the country, till your eye
catches the hills in the interior. How beautiful and
magnificent are the lakes in the heart of the forests,
and how charming the forests themselves, for miles
after miles on each side of the rivers! How extensive
appear the savannas, or natural meadows, teeming
with innumerable herds of cattle, where the Portuguese
and Spaniards are settled, hut desert as Sahara where
■the English and Dutch claim dominion. How gradu-
ally the face of the country rises! See the sand-hills
all clothed in wood first emerging from the level, then
hills a little higher, ragged with bold and craggy
rocks, peeping out from amongst the most luxuriant
timber. Then come plains, and dells, and far-extending
valleys, arrayed in richest foliage; and beyond them,
mountains piled on mountains, some bearing prodigious
forests, others of bleak and barren aspect. Thus your
eye wanders on, over scenes of varied loveliness and
grandeur, till it rests on the stupendous pinnacles of
the long-continued Cordilleras de los Andes, which
rise in towering majesty, and command all America.
How fertile must the lowlands be, from the accumu-
SOTJTH AMERICA.
191
lation of fallen leaves and trees for centuries. How
propitious the swamps and slimy beds of the rivers,
heated by a downward sun, to the amazing growth of
alligators, serpents, and innumerable insects. How
inviting the forests to the feathered tribes, where you
see buds, blossoms, green and ripe fruit, full-grown
and fading leaves, all on the same tree. How secure
the wild beasts may rove in endless mazes. Perhaps
those mountains, too, which appear so bleak and naked,
as if quite neglected, are, like Potosi, full of precious
metals.
Let us now return the pinions we borrowed from
Icarus, and prepare to bid farewell to the wilds. The
time allotted to these Wanderings is drawing fast to a
close. Every day for the last six months has been
employed in paying close attention to natural history
in the forests of Demerara. Above two hundred
specimens of the finest birds have been collected, and
a pretty just knowledge formed of their haunts and
economy. Prom the time of leaving England, in
March, 1816, to the present day, nothing has inter-
vened to arrest a fine flow of health, saving a quartan
ague, which did not tarry, but fled as suddenly as it
appeared.
And nqw I take leave of thee, kind and gentle
reader. The new mode of preserving birds, heretofore
promised thee, shall not be forgotten. The plan is
192 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA.
already formed in imagination, and can "be penned down
during the passage across the Atlantic. If the few
remarks in these Wanderings shall haye any weight
in inciting thee to sally forth and explore the vast and
well-stored regions of Demerara, I have gained my
end. Adieu.
Charles Waterton.
April 6, 1817.
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