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and all the comforts and conveniences which a Yorkshire esquire may be supposed to enjoy, (if we except those of a wife and children,) to wander, as he tells us, through the wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, with the view to reach the inland frontier fort of Portugueze Guiana; to collect a quantity of the strongest Wourali poison; and to catch and stuff the beautiful birds which abound in that part of South America;'-all which objects we are happy to find were accomplished at the trifling inconvenience, for so our • Wanderer' seems to consider it, of a severe tertian ague,' that stuck by him for three years only after his return to England.

In proof that the effects of this disease were not very serious, we find him setting out a second time, in the spring of 1816, for Pernambuco. He once more betook himself to his favourite woods of Guiana, and after spending six months among them, returned home enriched with above two hundred specimens of the finest birds, and a pretty just knowledge formed of their haunts and economy.' This second expedition was even more happy than the first, since nothing intervened to arrest a fine flow of health, saving a quartan ague, which did not tarry, but fled as suddenly as it appeared.' Accordingly, almost as little disposed as the quartan was Mr. Waterton to tarry at home; Guiana, he says, still whispered in his ear; and off he set, the third time, for Demerara, in the early part of 1820. From thence, in due season, he returned to Liverpool, safe and sound, bringing with him a valuable collection in the various departments of natural history, and, among other things, an assortment of eggs of different birds, which he had collected and preserved in a particular manner, with a view to have them hatched in England, and thus obtain new breeds. But some supervising officer of the customs, some Argus from London,' it seems, laid his hands upon the whole collection, which was detained until the eggs were spoiled; and it was not till after a long lapse of time and various applications that an order was at last sent down from the Treasury to say that any specimens Mr. Waterton intended to present to public institutions might pass duty free; but those which he intended to keep for himself must pay the duty! We think there must have been some mistake in this; for we know from experience that there is no hesitation on the part of the Treasury to release, on the most easy terms, collections of this nature, and certainly without making any sort of inquiry whether they be intended for private or for public use.

This unexpected, and, as Mr. Waterton calls it, vexatious proceeding, had the effect of so entirely damping his ardour, that he 'could, now witness the departure of the cuckoo and the swallow for warmer regions without even turning his face to the south:— 'For

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For three years,' says he, I continued in this dreary climate;' during which time, he adds, I seldom or never mounted my hobby-horse.' Fortunately, however, for himself and the lovers of natural history, that admirable work of Wilson on the 'Ornithology of the United States,' unequalled by any publication in the old world for accurate delineation and just description, fell into his hands its perusal speedily fanned the almost expiring flame,' and off he once more set, in the year 1824, for New York. In proceeding to the United States, the objects of his research were, he informs us, bugs, bears, brutes and buffaloes,' and our readers will sympathize with him in the disappointment he experienced-for behold, instead of these amiable creatures, the 'Wanderer' found nothing but civilized men and beautiful women. He soon quitted those to him uninteresting shores, and found his way somehow or other, for the fourth time, to his favourite haunts among the forests of Demerara. From thence he has once more returned in safety, and with many precious additions to his museum. Whither the next quadrennial flight of this bird of passage will take him he does not tell us, but the concluding stanza of his book, somewhat in the Sternhold and Hopkins style, gives unquestionable warning of a future migration: And who knows how soon, complaining

Of a cold and wifeless home,
He may leave it, and again in

Equinoxial regions roam ?'

We must warn our readers, however, not to conclude from the haste in which he fled from the sort of society he fell in with in North America, that Mr. Waterton is of a morose or antisocial disposition; on the contrary, every page of his book breathes such a spirit of kindness and benevolence, of undisturbed good humour and singleness of heart, that we know nothing to compare with it, except the little volume of that prince of piscators the amiable Isaac Walton. We could extract a thousand small touches which prove how lavishly nature has bestowed on him the milk of human kindness. Thus in his address to the courteous reader' on the subject of collecting specimens of natural history, he says, 'having killed a pair of doves to enable thee to give mankind a true and proper description of them, thou must not destroy a third through wantonness, or to show what a good marksman thou art.' Surely there are no such things as preserves or battues among the ancestral domains of Walton-Hall. Then again, at the conclusion of his Instructions for the Preservation of Birds,' he says, should they, unfortunately, tend to cause a wanton expense of life; should they tempt you to shoot the pretty sougster warbling near your door, or destroy the mother as she is

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sitting on her nest to warm her little ones; or kill the father, as he is bringing a mouthful of food for their support,--oh, then! deep, indeed, will be the regret that I ever wrote them;' and when he informs the collector of birds that, should evening overtake him in the woods, the fire-fly will serve for a candle, he adds, 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.' But the following trait even out-tobies Uncle Toby:

In all the way from Buffalo to Quebec, I only met with one bug; and I cannot even swear that it belonged to the United States. In going down the St. Lawrence, in the steam-boat, I felt something crossing over my neck; and on laying hold of it with my finger and thumb, it turned out to be a little half-grown, ill-conditioned bug. Now, whether it were going from the American to the Canada side, or from the Canada to the American, and had taken the advantage of my shoulders to ferry itself across, I could not tell. Be this as it may, I thought of my uncle Toby and the fly; and so, in lieu of placing it upon the deck, and then putting my thumb nail vertically upon it, I quietly chucked it amongst some baggage that was close by, and recommended it to get ashore by the first opportunity.'--pp. 258, 259.

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Our Yorkshire Wanderer' is, notwithstanding, somewhat of a humorist, though not the least of a growler. While in the United States, he finds every thing on a grand scale-except taxation. He is satisfied, in his own mind, that the ideas of one travelling in that country become enlarged in proportion to the magnitude of the objects which surround him; and this theory of his, he thinks, will account for the extreme desire he himself felt of holding a sprained foot (which in England would have been submitted to the pitiful stream of a pump) under the full torrent of Niagara. Perhaps,' he adds, there was an unwarrantable tincture of vanity in an unknown wanderer wishing to have it in his power to tell the world, that he had held his sprained foot under a fall of water, which discharges six hundred and seventy thousand, two hundred and fifty-five tons per minute.' This unlucky foot lost him the opportunity of dancing with a fair lady of Albany who seems to have made an impression on his heart; but that which mortified him the most was, that his lameness was construed by the ladies and gentlemen assembled at Niagara to be the gout-a disease which, recollecting no doubt the old theory

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'Membrifragus Bacchus cum membrifragâ Cythereâ Progenerant guatam membrifragam Podagram,' our sober and single Squire indignantly declares he never had in his life, nor expects to have. An album was luckily on the table,

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which enabled him to publish his misfortune, and, at the same time, to discharge the little tinge of ill-humour which the mistake seems to have occasioned; he wrote as follows:

'C. Waterton, of Walton Hall, in the county of York, England, arrived at the falls of Niagara in July, 1824, and begs leave to pen down the following dreadful accident:

'He sprained his foot and hurt his toe

On the rough road near Buffalo.

It quite distresses him to stagger a

long the sharp rocks of famed Niagara.'

It does not follow that, because Mr. Waterton has sinned against quantity, in order to hitch in a rhyme, he may not have found good company in his Horace, as he tells us he did, while sitting on the stump of an old tree in the forests of Demerara. Indeed, our Squire quotes his school classics occasionally with very tolerable success; for if the passage be common-place, the introduction of it seldom fails to be quaint and amusing. Thus in crossing the tropic of Cancer, he is reminded, somehow or other, of Phaeton's misadventure.

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'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, 'manifesta rotæ vestigia cernes.' "But," added he, " even suppose you keep on it, and avoid the by-roads, 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,' Hæmoniosque arcus,' and spring-guns, · sævaque 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 prodigious deal of mischief, very luckily for the world, he got thrown out of the box, and tumbled into the river Po.'-pp. 86, 87.

Having thus briefly introduced our author to the reader's acquaintance, we proceed to give some account of the contents of his book, which we may safely pronounce to be full not of amusement only, but of curious and useful information regarding the natural history, more particularly the zoology, of the equinoctial regions of South America. Nor do we esteem Mr. Waterton's services in these matters the less, because he has adopted the native or the trivial names which the plants and animals bear, to the exclusion of the more fashionable nomenclature of the Linnæan system; the former being of far greater use-to travellers and collectors, at least--than the latter can pretend to be. While

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resident in the depths of these magnificent forests, Mr. Waterton has availed himself of the opportunity of studying the habits of their numerous and splendid inhabitants, and of correcting prevailing errors regarding many of them; he has pencilled out, in few words, several lively and fascinating groups of animated beings, each thrown into its peculiar manner and action; he has brought home a rich harvest of subjects in the various departments of natural history; and he has given instructions for preserving all kinds of subjects of the animal creation. He treats lightly the fatigues and the dangers to which he has been exposed, and makes no boast of his exploits, except in allusion to the vexatious detention of his specimens at the Liverpool custom-house.

In order to pick up matter for natural history, I have wandered through the wildest parts of South America's equatorial regions. I have attacked and slain a modern Python, and rode on the back of a Cayman close to the water's edge; a very different situation from that of a Hydepark dandy on his Sunday prancer before the ladies. Alone and barefoot I have pulled poisonous snakes out of their lurking places; climbed up trees to peep into holes for bats and vampires, and for days together hastened through sun and rain to the thickest parts of the forest to procure specimens I had never got before. In fine, I have pursued the wild beasts over bill and dale, through swamps and quagmires, now scorched by the noon-day sun, now drenched by the pelting shower, and returned to the hammock, to satisfy the cravings of hunger, often on a poor and scanty supper.'-pp. 242, 243.

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As these two feats of slaying the Python' and riding a crocodile' are really the only two things in the book which 'home-keeping readers will be apt to set down to the account of a traveller's privilege, and to consider as 'wondrous tough stories,' we may as well get rid of them at once. We shall relate them as briefly as we can, chiefly in the author's own words; premising, however, that we consider them quite as well entitled to credit, as the story told by Mungo Park of Isaaco's gouging out the two eyes of the crocodile, which seized him in crossing the Ba-Woolima. Mr. Waterton had long been looking out for one of those enormous snakes known by the name of Coulacanara, whose length sometimes extends to eighteen or twenty feet, and whose thickness is enormous in proportion. At length one of them was discovered by an old negro, coiled up in his den. It required some time to clear away gently the plants and creepers that interposed; Mr. Waterton's two blacks were urgent with him to shoot it, but his object was to get him alive, in order to obtain his skin perfect, and to dissect him while fresh. As he advanced, one of the negroes stood close behind him with a lance, the other with a cutlass, both of them terribly frightened. The head was observed to protrude

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