Wanderings in South America

How fertile must the lowlands be, from the accumulation 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.  From the time of leaving England, in March, 1816, to the present day, nothing has intervened to arrest a fine flow of health, saving a quartan ague, which did not tarry, but fled as suddenly as it appeared.

And now 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 already formed in imagination, and can be penned down during the passage across the Atlantic.  If the few remarks in these Wanderings shall have 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.

1

  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; Koffie, Tuesday.—N. M.

2

  “Natural History Essays,” by Charles Waterton, edited, with a life of the author, by Norman Moore (Warne and Co.).