THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Biology BEQUEST OF Theodore S. Palmer ;2* a LONDON. FRZDERIOf .WARNE & I ESSAYS ON NATURAL HISTORY BY CHARLES jWATERTON. EDITED, WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, BY NORMAN MOORE, B.A. ST CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. hfc portrait anfr Illustrations. LONDON: FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN. NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, WELFORD, & ARMSTRONG. ldd'1 PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY EDINBURGH AND LONDON W33 1270 PREFACE. WATERTON once remarked to me that the naturalist, as well as the poet, might be said to be born, not made. An examination of the works on Natural History, and of the proceedings of zoological societies, confirms this opinion. The number of writers is great, but the permanent value of the productions is small, ,and bears about the same proportion to their bulk that a phial of attar of roses does to the bushels of flowers from which it is extracted. Many pursue science as a means of accumulating wealth, more, perhaps, as a ladder to notoriety. The former class cannot stop to consider details and arguments which will not yield a pecuniary return. The latter live in fear of being forestalled, and publish half-made observations and crude theories, lest some other com- petitor in the race of vanity should snatch from them the applause. They frequently attain the riches or the celebrity for which they strive. Their reputation is great for a time, but its decay is as rapid as its growth, and a few years after their death their works riieep like the authors in dust. This is so usual a result, that some persons have supposed this ephemeral quality to be an inherent disadvantage of scientific work. But the conclusion is mistaken. Science, pursued for its own sake, with patient research and prolonged thought, will always yield dis- 545 iv PREFACE. coveries that will descend to succeeding generations. It is because Waterton belongs to that select body of men who have studied nature with no other object than to find out truth, that his works are valuable and will endure. His observations are so accurate that they delight the profoundest philosopher, and so simply described, that the least learned can understand them. Most of these essays might be read with profit even in village schools. They would open the eyes of the children to the treasures of the fields, and would teach them humanity to bird, beast, and reptile. Although the naturalist be born, not made, still the history of human knowledge shows that the more generally a subject is studied, the more abundantly will latent genius be drawn forth. When architecture was the pursuit of a vast number of cultivated minds throughout Europe, the Gothic cathedrals were the result. In our own century, a similar concentration of thought upon mechanics has been productive of no less astonishing effects. And probably when scientific education has spread through the land, Watertons and Whites will not be so scarce as they are now. To walk with Waterton in his beautiful park was one of the greatest delights I have experienced. I hope that the reader may enjoy a kindred pleasure by walking in the fields with these essays in his mind, and watching the sights which Waterton describes. ST BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL, November 1870. CONTENTS. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, ....... I THE MONKEY FAMILY, . . . . . .137 THE DOG TRIBE, .... V ... 196 THE FOX, , . . . . . , .211 THE WEASEL, . . , . . . 226 THE VAMPIRE, . . . . . . . 233 THE BAT, - .' . . .* . . . 236 TH*. BROWN OR GRAY RAT, . . . ' . . ,' ' 237 ANECDOTE OF A COMBAT BETWIXT TWO HARES, . . . . 242 THE FACULTY OF SCENT IN THE VULTURE, . . . , V V 243 THE MEANS BY WHICH THE TURKEY-BUZZARD TRACES ITS FOOD, . 251 THE VULTURE'S NOSE, ....... 261 AERIAL ENCOUNTER OF THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE, . . . 263 THE WINDHOVER, . . . . . . ./ . 266 THE BARN OWL, AND THE BENEFITS IT CONFERS ON MAN, . . 270 THE TAWNY OWL, . . .' . . . . 278 THE CIVETTA, OR LITTLE ITALIAN OWL, ..... 282 THE RAVEN, .... .... 285 THE CARRION CROW, . ...... 2QO THE ROOK'S BILL, ...:.... 298 THE ROOK, . ....... 305 THE JACKDAW, ........ $12 CONTENTS. PAGE THE JAY, . . . . . ... .315 THE MAGPIE, ........ 319 THE ROLLER, . . . . . . . 324 THE STARLING, . . . . . . . . 327 THE STORMCOCK, . . . . . . . . 331 THE CHAFFINCH, . . . . . . . 335 THE WREN, THE HEDGE-SPARROW, AND THE ROBIN, . . . 340 THE HUMMING-BIRD, . . ".'..'". . . 345 THE PASSENGER-PIGEON, . . * . . . 353 THE RINGDOVE, . . . . . . . 356 THE DOVECOT PIGEON, . . , . . ." . , 362 THE PHEASANT, ........ 366 THE KINGFISHER, >, . . . 373 THE RUMPLESS FOWL, . . . . . 377 THE HERON, . . . ... . .380 THE MALLARD, . . . . . . ^ * . 387 THE WIGEON, . ' .' . . . *.-* . 3Q2 THE CANADA GOOSE, . . . . . .... 395 THE DOMESTIC SWAN, . . . . . . .40! THE GUILLEMOT, . . . . . . . 407 THE CORMORANT, . , . . . . . . 412 THE TROPIC BIRD, . . .' . . . . . 416 THE CAYMAN, . ^ . . . . . . 420 SNAKES, . . ... . . . . . 427 THE CHEGOE OF GUIANA, . f . ; . . . . . 447 THE YEW TREE, . . . . . - . . . 450 THE IVY, .... ^. . . . . -454 THE HOLLY, ......... 460 THE POWERS OF VEGETATION, . . . . . . 464 BEAUTY IN THE ANIMAL CREATION, ..... 465 THE FOOD OF ANIMALS, ....... 470 CANNIBALISM, ........ 476 DEFENCE AGAINST ANIMALS OF THE FELINE AND CANINE TRIBES, . 490 HINTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS, ,,.... 496 CONTENTS. vil PAGE FLOWER GARDENS AND SONG-BIRDS, . . . ... 502 TREES, THE TITMOUSE AND THE WOODPECKER, . . . . 506 AN ORNITHOLOGICAL LETTER TO WILLIAM SWAINSON, ESQ., F.R.S., . $11 LETTER TO A BOOKMAKER, . . . . . . '523 BIRDS' EGGS, . . . , . . . . 524 METHOD OF PRESERVING INSECTS, ...... 527 MUSEUMS, ,,".,..... 531 APPENDIX, 543 CONTENTS TO APPENDIX, ....... 544 LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS. PORTRAIT OF CHARLES WATERTON, , . toface Title. GENERAL VIEW OF THE PARK, . , to face page \\<) THE GROTTO, . > WATERTON'S GRAVE, . . THE VIGOUR OF NATURE, ... , 4 6 4 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. IN the year 1837, Waterton prefixed to his first series of Essays in Natural History an account of such of his travels and adventures as are not mentioned in the " Wanderings in South America," and he continued the narrative up to the year 1857 in the second and third series of Essays. The larger part of this autobiography is incor- porated in the present Memoir. Waterton's sketch, like the man, was unpretentious. He makes no boast, claims no discoveries, and demands no supremacy, but gives a simple chronicle of the^-interest- ing events of his life. My object in my additions is threefold: to complete the story of his career ; to describe the attainments and work of a naturalist, the first of his own time, and in no age sur- passed j and, lastly, to . preserve some of the traits of a character so rare and beautiful, that to allow the memory of it to drop unrecorded into the past would be to rob the world of a precedent which it can- not afford to lose. " Such a man Might be a copy to these younger times, Which, followed well, would demonstrate them now But goers backward."* Charles, the eldest son of Thomas and Anne Waterton, was borr in 1782. To avoid, perhaps, the notice which the anniversary would have occasioned, Waterton would never tell the day of his birth, though his friends knew that it was near the beginning of summer In the year 1864 he asked his sisters-in-law, Miss Edmonstone and Miss Helen Edmonstone, to come and see a stone cross which he * " All's Well that Ends Well," Act i., sc. 2. A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. had put up between two fine old oaks in a distant part of Walton Park. He said he especially wished them to come that day, which was the 3d of June. He rowed his sisters-in-law in his boat to the far end of the lake which surrounds Walton Hall, and when they arrived at the spot, he told them he intended to be buried there, and put his arms round the cross. " Squire," said Miss Edmonstone in Italian, for there was a man at work within hearing, " it is your birthday." He smiled, and bowed assent. Thus it came to be known that he was born on the 3d of June. Waterton's father was fond of out door natural history and of field- sports. He was also a good scholar, and though prevented by the penal laws against Roman Catholics from holding even the office ot a magistrate, he had a high position among the gentlemen of his county. Mrs Waterton, according to the testimony of those who knew her, was a lady of more than ordinary dignity and judgment. She early and successfully taught her children high principles and scrupulous conduct. They retained, throughout their lives, a loving recollection of how much they were indebted to her ; and to the end of his days her eldest son would speak of her and her deeds with affectionate reverence. Waterton has related his descent in "Some Account of the Writer of the following Essays, by Himself : " " I think I have seen in a book, but I forget which just now, that, when we read a work, we generally have a wish to see the author's portrait, or, at least, to know something of him.* Under this im- pression, I conceive that a short account of myself will not be wholly uninteresting to the reader, who, it is to be hoped, will acquit me of egotism, as I declare, in all truth, that I write these Memoirs with no other object in view than that of amusing him. " I was born at Walton Hall, near Wakefield, in the county of York, some five-and-fifty years ago. This tells me that I am no chicken ; but, were I asked how I feel with regard to the approaches * The book which Waterton had forgotten was "The Spectator," No. I. : "I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author." [D.] LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. of old age, I should quote Dryden's translation of the description which the Roman poet has given us of Charon : * He seemed in years, yet in his years were seen A vernal vigour and autumnal green.' In fact, I feel as though I were not more than thirty years old. I am quite free from all rheumatic pains ; and am so supple in the joints that I can climb a tree with the utmost facility. I stand six feet high, all but half an inch. On looking at myself in the glass, I can see at once that my face is anything but comely : continual ex- posure to the sun, and to the rains of the tropics, has furrowed it in places, and given it a tint which neither Rowland's Kalydor nor all the cosmetics on Belinda's toilette would ever be able to remove. My hair, which I wear very short, was once of a shade betwixt brown and black : it has now the appearance as though it had passed the night exposed to a November hoar-frost. I cannot boast of any great strength of arm ; but my legs, probably by much walking, and by frequently ascending trees, have acquired vast muscular power ; so that, on taking a view of me from top to toe, you would say that the upper part of Tithonus has been placed upon the lower part of Ajax. Or to speak zoologically, were I exhibited for show at a horse-fair, some learned jockey would exclaim, He is half Rosinante, half Bucephalus. " I have preferred to give this short description of myself by the pen, rather than to have a drawing taken by the pencil, as I have a great repugnance to sit to an artist ; although I once did sit to the late Mr Peale of Philadelphia, and he kept my portrait for his museum. Moreover, by giving this description of myself, it will prevent all chance in future of the nondescript's* portrait in the * Wanderings ' being taken for my own.t * " A late worthy Baronet in the North Riding of Yorkshire, having taken up the 'Wanderings,' and examined the representation of the nondescript with minute attention, '.Dear me ! ' said he, as he showed the engraving to his surrounding company, ' what a very extraordinary-looking man Mr Waterton must be ! '" t Since his death two busts of Waterton have been executed, one by Mr Water- house Hawkins, the other by Mr Henry Ross. The former represents him in a coat and buttoned-up waistcoat, a fashion which he never adopted. It gives a true idea of the general aspect of his head and the shape of his forehead, but the. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. " The poet tells us, that the good qualities of man and of cattle descend to their offspring. ' Fortes creantur fortibus ct bonis? If thij 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 Bedingfelds of Oxburgh, to the Charltons 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 progenitors 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 believe that we are all descended from Adam and his wife Eve, notwithstanding 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 been able to find ; for he positively informs us that Adam and Eve were his ancestors : ' 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 Afric'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 sufficiently 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. Another ancestor was sent into France by the King, with orders to contract a royal marriage. He mouth is very unlike, and the whole is too tame. Mr Ross's bust leaves the throat and chest bare. It has more vigour than that of Mr Hawkins, but both sculptors have failed to catch the true expression, and Waterton's saint-like and love-inspiring sniile will be preserved only in the minds of those who knew him. [D.] LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 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. Another was Master of the Horse, and was deprived both of his commission and his estate* on the same account as the former. His descendants seemed determined to perpetuate their claim to the soil; for they sent a bailiff once in every seven years to dig up a sod on the terri- tory. I was the first to discontinue this septennial act, seeing law and length of time against us. " Up to the reign of Henry VIII. things had gone on swimmingly for the Watertons ; and it does not appear that any of them had ever been in disgrace : ' Neque in his quisquam damnatus et exsul.' But, during the sway of that ferocious brute, there was a sad reverse of fortune : ' Ex illo fluere, ac retro sublapsa referri, Spes Danaum.' ' From thence the tide of fortune left their shore, And ebbed much faster than it flowed before.' The cause of our disasters was briefly this : The King fell scanda-' lously in love with a buxom lass, and he wished to make her his lawful wife, notwithstanding that his most virtuous Queen was still alive. Having applied to the head of the Church for a divorce, his request was not complied with ; although Martin Luther, the apostate friar and creed-reformer, had allowed the Margrave of Hesse to have two wives at one and the same time. Upon this refusal, our royal goat became exceedingly mischievous : ' Audax omnia perpeti ruit per vetitum nefas? Having caused himself to be made head of the Church, he suppressed all the monasteries, and squandered their revenues amongst gamesters, harlots, mountebanks, and apostates. The poor, by his villanies, were reduced to great misery, and they took to evil ways in order to keep body and soul together. During this merciless reign, 72,000 of them were hanged for thieving. * Methley Park was his seat. [Eo.] LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. " In good * Queen Mary's days, there was a short tide of flood in our favour ; and Thomas Waterton of Walton Hall was High Sheriff of York. This was the last public commission held by our family. The succeeding reigns brought every species of reproach and indig- nity upon us. We were declared totally incapable of serving our country ; we were held up to the scorn of a deluded multitude, as damnable idolaters ; and we were unceremoniously ousted out of our tenements : our only crime being a conscientious adherence to the creed of our ancestors, professed by England for nine long centuries before the Reformation. So determined were the new religionists that we should grope our way to heaven along the crooked and gloomy path which they had laid out for us, that they made us pay twenty pounds a month, by way of penalty, for refusing to hear a married parson read prayers in the Church of Sandal Magna; which venerable edifice had been stripped of its altar, its crucifix, its chalice, its tabernacle, and all its holy ornaments, not for the love of God, but for the private use and benefit of those who had laid their sacrilegious hands upon them. My ancestors acted wisely. I myself would rather run the risk of going to hell with St Edward the Confessor, Venerable Bede, and St Thomas of Canterbury, than make a dash at heaven in com- pany with Harry VIII., Queen Bess, and Dutch William. " Oliver Cromwell broke down our drawbridge ; some of his mus- ket-balls remaining in one of the old oaken gates, which are in good repair to this day. Not being able to get in, he carried off every- thing in the shape of horses and cattle that his men could lay their hands on. " Dutch William enacted doubly severe penal laws against us. Dur- ing the reign of that sordid foreigner, some little relaxation was ,at fast made in favour of Dissenters ; but it was particularly specified that nothing contained in the act should be construed ' to give ease to any Papist or Popish recusant.' " My grandfather had the honour of being sent prisoner to York, a short time before the battle of Culloden, on account of his well- known attachment to the hereditary rights of kings, in the person of * " Camden, the Protestant historian, says that Queen Mary was a Princess never sufficiently to be commended of all men for pious and religious demeanour, her commiseration towards the poor," &c. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. poor Charley Stuart, who was declared a pretender ! On my grand- father's release, he found that his horses had been sent to Wakefield, there to be kept at his own expense. But the magistrates very graciously allowed him to purchase a horse for his own riding, pro- vided the price of it was under five pounds.* " My own father paid double taxes for some years after he came to the estate.t " Times are better for us now : but I, individually, am not much better for the change ; for I will never take Sir Robert Peel's oath. In framing that abominable oath, I don't believe that Sir Robert cared one fig's end whether the soul of a Catholic went up, after death, to the King of Brightness, or descended to the King of Brim- stone : his only aim seems to have been to secure to the Church by law established the full possession of the loaves and fishes. But, as I have a vehement inclination to make a grab at those loaves and fishes, in order to distribute a large proportion of them to the poor of Great Britain, who have an undoubted claim to it, I do not intend to have my hands tied behind me : hence my positive refusal to swallow Sir Robert Peel's \ oath. Still, take it or refuse it, the new dynasty may always make sure of my loyalty, even if any of our old line of kings were still in existence ; for ' The illustrious house of Hanover, And Protestant succession, To these I have allegiance sworn, While they can keep possession.' " When I was not quite eight years old, I had managed to climb upon the roof of an out-house, and had got to a starling's nest under one of the slates. Had my foot slipped, I should have been in as * An act passed in the reign of William III. prohibited a Roman Catholic from keeping a horse worth more than five pounds. The object was to deprive the Roman Catholics of chargers which could be used for military purposes in the event of a rising. [ED.] t Roman Catholics were compelled by Act of Parliament to pay double land- tax. [ED.] t " ' I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to sub- vert the present Church Establishment within this realm,' &c. (See Sir Robert Teel's oath.)'' 8 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR bad a plight as was poor Ophelia in the willow-tree, when the 'envious sliver broke.' The ancient housekeeper mentioned in the account of the barn-owl had cast her rambling eye upon me. Seeing the danger I was in, she went and fetched a piece of ginger- bread, with which she lured me down, and then she seized me as though I had been a malefactor. " At nine years old, I was sent to a school in the North of Eng- land, where literature had scarcely any effect upon me, although it was duly administered in large doses by a very scientific hand. But I made vast proficiency in the art of finding birds' nests. It was judged necessary by the master of the school to repress this inordin- ate relish for ornithological architecture, which, in his estimation, could be productive of no good. Accordingly, the birch-rod was brought to bear upon me when occasion offered; but the warm application of it, in lieu of effacing my ruling passion, did but tend to render it more distinct and clear. Thus are bright colours in crockeryware made permanent by the action of fire ; thus is dough turned into crust by submitting it to the oven's heat." The childhood of our naturalist was spent at Walton Hall. He had a sister of whom he was very fond, and they passed many " sweet childish days " in the meadows and under the trees of Wal- ton. Their sports, and their converse were no doubt not unlike those of another true lover of nature : " Oh ! pleasant, pleasant were the days, The time when, in our childish plays, My sister Emmeline and I Together chased the butterfly ! A very hunter did I rush Upon the prey : with leaps and springs I followed on from brake to bush; But she, God love her ! feared to brush The dust from off its wings." * One day an incident occurred which is worth mentioning, because it shows how an unpleasant impression, received at a very early period, may permanently reverse the natural tastes of man. The merry * Wordsworth. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 9 children had found a lark's nest in the grass near the foot of a tall poplar, which still stands opposite the east windows of Walton Hall. Charles, overflowing with fun, swallowed one of the eggs, shell and all. His sister, in an agony of terror lest her brother should be poisoned, ran off and told her mother of the dreadful occurrence. Mrs Water- ton, not knowing what her son might have eaten, forthwith gave him a mustard emetic, and he could never afterwards endure the taste of mustard. At ten years of age Waterton was sent to school, and seventy years afterwards, March 26, 1862, he wrote the recollections which follow of that early time : " Towards the close of the last century a Catholic school was founded at Tudhoe village, some four or five miles from the vener- able city of Durham. The Reverend Arthur Storey, a profound Latin scholar, was the master. My father put me under Mr Storey's care about the year 1792. Mr Storey engaged a holy and benevolent priest, by name Robert Blacoe, to help him in the school. He was ill in health, having severely injured himself in his escape over the walls of Douai, at the commencement of the French Revolution. To this good priest succeeded another, the Reverend Joseph Shep- herd. He was a very correct disciplinarian, and, one morning, whilst he was treating me to the unwelcome application of a birch-rod, I flew at the calf of his leg, and made him remember the sharpness of my teeth. I wish I had them now ; but no one has a right to lament the loss when he is fourscore years of age. In the days of Mr Shep- herd priests always wore breeches and worsted stockings ; so these were no defence against the teeth of an enraged boy, writhing under a correctional scourge. " 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 his flaxen wig on, my countenance fell. He was in the schoolroom all day, and I was too often placed in a 10 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. very uncomfortable position at nightfall. But sometimes 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 exer- tions. Being dissatisfied with the regulations of the establishment, he came to me one Palm Sunday, and entreated me to get into the schoolroom through the window, and write a letter of complaint to his sister Eliza in York. I did so, having insinuated myself with vast exertion through the iron stanchions which secured the window; 1 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 Reverend Mr Storey a fiery, frightful, formidable spectre ! To my horror and confusion 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. " And thus I went on month after month, in sadness and in sun- shine, in pleasure and in pain; the ordinary lot of adventurous schoolboys in their thorny path to the temple of erudition. Some time about the year '94 there came to Tudhoe four young grown-up men, to study for the Church. These four young men all happened to be endowed with giant appetites, but oily Mrs Atkinson, the housekeeper, thought that, now and then upon a pinch, they might struggle on with a short allowance. This was absolutely contrary to the law of nature ; so they, seeing that I was a dashing and aspiring lad, it was arranged amongst us that I should cater for them surrep- titiously, from time to time, under the cover of the night. Accord- ingly I stormed the larder, and filled my pockets full of bread and cheese, &c. My exertions were always successful, and my move- ments were never suspected, as I planned most cautiously during the day what I had to mature in the dead of night. In due time these four promising young men left Tudhoe, and were located at a LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. II place called Crook Hall, where they may be said to have been the foundations of the future college of Ushaw. I myself, too, consider that I have a right to claim a mite of merit, having contributed to the bodily support of those who laboured for Ushaw at its birth. Their task was that of giants, in perpetual work, ' Tanta molis erat JRomanam condere gentem? " 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 pub- lican had also a mare, surprising in her progeny ; she had three foals, in three successive years, not one of which had the least appearance 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 cap- tured, 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 ren- dered them beautifully purple. We used them for warlike purposes, by holding them betwixt our forefinger and thumb with the sharp end upwards, and as little exposed as possible. 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 12 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. stomach, when no more eggs with unbroken ends remained to cany- 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 me 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 ; 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 Ralph 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, ' Yaw -killed aur guise/ " At Bishop Auckland, there lived a man by the name of Charles the Painter. He played extremely well on the Northumberland bag- * The practice of presenting children with stained eggs at Easter was once uni- versal throughout Christendom. The egg combats at Tudhoe resembled the snail- ohell contests which Southey says " he never saw or heard of" except at a school to which he was sent near Bristol. " The shells were placed against each other, point to point, and pressed till one was broken in. This was called conquering, and the shell which remained unhurt acquired value in proportion to the number over which it had triumphed." [ED.] LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 13 pipe, and his neighbour 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 neighbour* ing villages had theirs. One was the Tudhoe mouse, well known and often seen in every 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 Ferryhill, 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^Tudhoe, 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 Tud- hoe 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 without a head. 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 Hickson and Neddy Hunt, two hangers-on at the blacksmith's shop, had seen this phantom more than once, but they never durst ap- proach it. Indeed, every man and woman and child believed in this centaur-spectre, and I am not quite sure if our old master himself 14 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. did not partly believe that such a thing had occasionally been seen on very dark nights. " Young Timothy Pickering, the respectable carpenter of the village (he who had married Miss Ord, the papermaker's daughter), had a cat of surprising beauty. I once made some verses on this cat, and as Mr Meynell, the lay tutor, fancied that I alluded to himself, he whipped me without any kind of trial Timothy Pickering had an assistant carpenter, by name Taylor. He had a wen over his eye as large as a pigeon's egg. " As you went down the road below the blacksmith's, you were close on the village tailor's cottage. His name was Lawrence Thompson, but everybody called him Low Thompson. He had lost half of the fore-finger of his right hand, was a facetious and talkative fellow, and could sing a good song. He would now and then get an evening invitation to the school, where he sang the popular song of the ' White Hare ; ' but I remember only one stanza of it, viz. ' Squire Salvin rode up to the hill, And he damned them for they were all blind. Do you see how my bitch, Cruel, leads ? Do you see how she leaves them behind?' " Opposite Low Thompson's cottage, across the road, stood Tudhoe Old Hall, tenanted by a family named Patterson. A wall flanked the house, and close to this wall there grew some ancient sycamore trees, with holes in them, frequented by starlings. I used to climb these trees and take the starlings' nests. Formerly a Squire Salvin of the Croxdale family used to live at this Old Hall, and here he kept his harrier hounds. " The vicinity of Tudhoe produced vast quantities of hazel-nuts ; we were allowed to go in quest of them, and to bring off as many nuts as we could stow away upon our persons. The nut-season always closed with a recreation-evening at the school. It was termed Nut-crack-night, and Low Thompson invariably honoured the festival with his smirking presence, never forgetting the song of the ' White Hare.' " Old Joe Bo wren (the same person noticed in my autobiography), of vast bodily bulk, came to Tudhoe School about this time, from Sir John Lawson's at Brough Hall. We soon became hand in glove. LI PL OF THE AUTHOR. 15 He performed the duties of butcher, pig-server, scrub, and brewer; and ultimately migrated to Stonyhurst, where he exercised his voca- tion with great zeal and success, and there we renewed our valuable acquaintance. "We had a Scottish boy with two thumbs on one hand. Lady Livingstone frequently came to see her two boys, David and Francis. Once she brought with her an East Indian officer, who was generally called Tiger Duff. You shall hear why. One afternoon when a party of officers were walking alongside of a jungle, a Bengal tiger sprang at the Colonel, knocked him down, and tore his mouth to the ear. They all ran away, leaving the poor Colonel to his fate. He recovered his senses whilst the tiger was standing over him. Drawing his dagger with great caution, he drove it quite through the animal's heart, and thus he saved his own life. Seeing me stare at his face, he most kindly allowed me to examine the scar. " Close to us was a field where Mr Storey's cattle used to feed. It was called the Little Garth. One morning two of the bigger boys coaxed me to get up on one of these cows, promising that they would stand by my side. When I had got my seat, the beggars ran away. Off went the cow at full speed. I kept my seat for a time, and then I flew clear over her head, not much worse for the fall. " Mr Storey kept one bay mare, admirably calculated to convey him backward and forwards to the city of Durham on business, and occasionally to Bishop Auckland. He was very frugal in his estab- lishment, apart from the school, saving all he could spare to com- fort the poor. Bishop Gibson, a learned and holy prelate, was his guest, together with his faithful servant Thomas, for more than a year and a half whilst I was there. "We had a smart and handsome dancing-master, named Forsett, and so active that he sprang up and down like a parched pea on a sounding-board. The first dance that he taught us was to the tune of ' The Lass of Richmond Hill.' The name of our drawing-master in my time was Pether a fair artist enough in his way. We were taught military exercise by Serjeant Newton from Durham. He was a magnificent soldier, every inch of him ; possessing brain, spirit, and tact enough to command a regiment on a field of battle. " My first adventure on the water made a lasting impression, on 1 6 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. account of the catastrophe which attended it. There was a large horsepond, separated by a hedge from the field which was allotted to the scholars for recreation-ground. An oblong tub, used for hold- ing dough before it was baked, had just been placed by the side of the pond. I thought that I should like to have an excursion on the deep; so taking a couple of stakes out of the hedge, to serve as oars, I got into the tub, and pushed off ' Ripse ulterioris amore.' I had got above half way over, when, behold, the mascer, and the late Sir John Lawson of Brough Hall, suddenly rounded a .corner and hove in sight. Terrified at their appearance, I first lost a stake, and then my balance : this caused the tub to roll like a man-of-war in a calm. Down I went to the bottom, and rose again covered with mud and dirt. * Terribili squalore Charon? My good old master looked grave, and I read my destiny in his countenance : but Sir John said that it was, a brave adventure, and he saved me from being brought to a court-martial for disobedience of orders, and for having lost my vessel.* But it is time to cease on school affairs ; fully aware that too much pudding chokes a dog. Let us visit the surrounding country. " 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 my own in- struction and amusement. " Betwixt Tudhoe School and Ferry Hill, there stood an oaken post, very strong, and some nine feet high. This was its appearance in my days, but formerly it must have been much higher. It was known to all the country round by the name of Andrew Mills' stob. We often went to see it, and one afternoon whilst we were looking at it, an old woman came up, took her knife from her pocket, and then * Wordsworth's poem, " The Blind Highland Boy," was written on an adven- turous lad who embarked on Loch Leven in a washing-tub. Wordsworth sub- stituted a turtle-shell for the unpoetical tub, "in deference," he says, "to the opinion of a friend." [ED.] LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 17 pared off a chip, which she carefully folded up in a bit of paper. She said it was good for curing the toothache. The history of this time-beaten stob is sad and terrible. A neighbouring farmer and his wife had gone a tea-drinking one summer afternoon, leaving six children behind. Andrew Mills, the servant-man, fancied he would become heir of the farmer's property if the children were only got out of the way. So he cut all their throats, and his body was hung in chains on this noted stob. The poor children were all buried in one grave in a neighbouring churchyard. The tombstone tells their melancholy fate, and the epitaph ends thus : ' Here we sleep : we all were slain ; And here we rest, till we rise again.' I suspect that the remains of this oaken post have long since mouldered away. I have not been there for these last seventy years, and probably if I went thither, I should not be able to find the site of this formerly notorious gibbet. " Here I close my desultory reminiscences of Tudhoe and its neigh- bourhood, penned down hastily at the request of my dear cousin, George Waterton, now a student in divinity at Ushaw College. " On my return home from this school, I was once within an ace of closing all accounts here below for ever. About one o'clock in the morning, Monsieur Raquedel, the family chaplain, thought that he heard an unusual noise in the apartment next to his bedroom. He arose, and on opening the door of the chamber whence the noise had proceeded, he saw me in the act of lifting up the sash ; and he was just in time to save me from going out at a window three stories high. I was fast asleep, and as soon as he caught hold of me, I gave a loud shriek. I thought I was on my way to a neigh- bouring wood, in which I knew cf a crow's nest." There is one more anecdote of his Tudhoe days which deserves preservation. As Waterton was walking up a lane, he met an old woman, who asked him for charity. He had lately spent his last pocket-money, and had not a single halfpenny left. The only thing that he could give was a fine darning-needle, which he kept in the hem of his jacket, and which was of the greatest value to him ia B 1 8 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. blowing eggs. Long years afterwards, towards the end of a life full of quiet acts of kindness, he once mentioned this gift of the darning- needle as the most meritorious act of charity he had ever done. Tudhoe School, having migrated a few miles, has now grown into a great college. Its professors, in time of need, showed that they preferred learning to emolument, and their disinterestedness has met the reward it deserved. The original building has become the centre of a group ; the museum and the library are increasing : the college bids fair to expand into a university. Such is the present condition of Ushaw. In 1796, however, it was little more than a preparatory school, so Waterton left it and proceeded to more advanced studies at Stonyhurst, a handsome country-house, which had lately been turned into a college. Mr Weld, of Lulworth Castle, had made it over to some Jesuits, whom the troubles of the times had driven from their college at Liege. Waterton was one of their first pupils in their new home. The Jesuits have always been celebrated for the astuteness with which they discover and cultivate the bent of young minds. Waterton profited in no small degree by the wisdom of the Order. His instructors encouraged as far as possible his love for Natural History. At the same time, they gave him a taste for litera- ture. Thus his time passed gaily at Stonyhurst, and during the six years he stayed there, he laid up a store of knowledge, and went through a training which did much to make his whole life pleasant. " 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 intrusted to his charge with a care and affection truly paternal, he burst a blood-vessel, and retired to Palermo 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,' said he to me, in a tone of voice perfectly irresistible, ' I have long been studying your disposition, and I clearly foresee that nothing will keep you at home. You will journey into LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 19 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 proposal; 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. " At Stonyhurst there are boundaries marked out to the students, which they are not allowed to pass ; and there are prefects always pacing to and fro within the lines to prevent any unlucky boy from straying on the other side of them. Notwithstanding the vigilance of these lynx-eyed guardians, I would now and then manage to escape, and would bolt into a very extensive labyrinth of yew and holly trees close at hand. It was the chosen place for animated nature. Birds, in particular, used to frequent the spacious inclosure, both to obtain food and to enjoy security. Many a time have I hunted there the foumart and the squirrel. I once took a cut through it to a neighbouring wood, where I knew of a carrion crow's nest. The prefect missed me ; and, judging that I had gone into the labyrinth, he gave chase without loss of time. After eluding him in cover for nearly half an hour, being hard pressed, I took away down a hedgerow. Here (as I learned afterwards) he got a distant sight of me ; but it was not sufficiently distinct for him to know to a certainty that I was the fugitive. I luckily succeeded in reaching the outbuildings which abutted on the college, and lay at a considerable distance from the place where I had first started. I had just time to enter the postern-gate of a pig-sty, where, most opportunely, I found old Joe Bowren, the brewer, bringing straw into the sty. He was more attached to me than to any other boy, for I had known him when I was at school in the North, and had made him a present of a very fine terrier. ' I Ve just saved myself, Joe/ said I ; ' cover me up with litter.' He had barely complied with my request, when in bounced the prefect by the same gate through which I had entered. ' Have you seen Charles Waterton?' said he, quite out of breath. My trusty guardian answered, in a tone of voice which would have deceived anybody, ' Sir, I have not 20 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. spoken a word to Charles Waterton these three days, to the best of my knowledge.' Upon this the prefect, having lost all scent of me, gave up the pursuit, and went his way. When he had disappeared, I stole out of cover, as strongly perfumed as was old Falstaff when they had turned him out of the buck-basket. Once I had gone into the labyrinth to look into a magpie's nest, which was in a high hollow tree ; and hearing the sound of voices near, I managed to get a resting-place in the tree just over the nest, and there I squatted, waiting the event. Immediately, the President, two other Jesuits, and the present Mr Salvin of Croxdale Hall, passed close under the tree without perceiving me. " The good Fathers were aware of my predominant propensity. Though it was innocent in itself, nevertheless it was productive of harm in its consequences, by causing me to break the college rules, and thus to give bad example to the community at large. Where- fore, with a magnanimity and excellent exercise of judgment, which are only the province of those who have acquired a consummate knowledge of human nature, and who know how to turn to advan- tage the extraordinary dispositions of those intrusted to their care, they sagaciously managed matters in such a way as to enable me to ride my hobby to a certain extent, and still, at the same time, to pre- vent me from giving bad example. As the establishment was very large, and as it contained an abundance of prog, the Hanoverian rat, which fattens so well on English food, and which always coa- trives to thrust its nose into every man's house where there is an)- thing to be got, swarmed throughout the vast extent of this anti- quated mansion. The abilities which I showed in curtailing the career of this voracious intruder did not fail to bring me into con- siderable notice. The cook, the baker, the gardener, and my friend old Bowren, could all bear testimony to my progress in this line. By a mutual understanding, I was considered ratcatcher to the establishment, and also fox-taker, foumart-killer, and crossbow- charger at the time when the young rooks were fledged. Moreover, I fulfilled the duties of organ-blower and football-maker with entire satisfaction to the public. I was now at the height of my ambitioa ' Poteras iam, Cadme, videri . . . felix. 1 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 21 I followed up my calling with great success. The vermin disappeared by the dozen the books were moderately well-thumbed ; and, ac cording to my notion of things, all went on perfectly right. " When I had finished my rhetoric, it was my father's wish that I should return home. The day I left the Jesuits' college was one of heartfelt sorrow to me. Under Almighty God and my parents, I owe everything to the Fathers of the Order of St Ignatius. Their attention to my welfare was unceasing, whilst their solicitude for my advancement in virtue and in literature seemed to know no bounds. The permission which they granted me to work in my favourite vocation, when it did not interfere with the important duties of education, enabled me to commence a career which, in after times, afforded me a world of pleasure in the far distant regions of Brazil and Guiana. To the latest hour of my life I shall acknow- ledge, with feelings of sincerest gratitude, the many acts of paternal kindness which I so often received at the hands of the learned and generous Fathers of Stonyhurst College, 'Presidium etdulce decus meum. 1 " After leaving this ' safe retreat of health and peace,' I journeyed homewards to join my father; and I spent a year with him, ' Gaudens eqids cdnibusque et aprici gramme campi? He was well described by the Roman poet : ' Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis, Ut prisca gens mortalium, Paterna rura bobus exercet suis Solutus omni foenore.' He had been a noted hunter in his early days ; and, as he still loved in his heart to hear the mellow tones of the fox-hound, he introduced me particularly to Lord Darlington, whose elegant seat on horseback, and cool intrepidity in charging fences, made him the admiration of his surrounding company." Fox-hunting was Waterton's delight, and he soon became pre- eminent among the celebrated horsemen of Yorkshire, and wa3 esteemed the best rider in the hunt next to Lord Darlington. When an old man, he used sometimes to tell stories of his hunting-days to young fox-hunters, and always listened with pleasure to the account of a good run. One adventure had a most happy result. There 22 LIFE OF THE A UTHOR. was a coolness between the Watertons and a neighbouring family. The head of this family saw Waterton come over a hedge down into a little quarry which was on the other side. " Zounds ! Mr Water- ton," shouted the Baronet, amazed, and forgetting that they were not on speaking terms, " wjiat a jump !" They talked together, the feud was at an end, and they rode home friends. Of the convivialities which in those times did so much to mar the good effects of fox- hunting, Waterton kept clear. He bore in mind the promise he had made at college, and used, when the chase was over, to decline all invitations, and ride straight home. Travelling, after a while took the place of fox-hunting. " My father would every now and then say to me, with a gracious though significant smile on his countenance, ' Studium quid inutile. tentasV And as my mother was very anxious that I should see the world, they took advantage of the short Peace of Amiens [1802], and sent me to Spain. " Two of my maternal uncles, who had received brilliant educa- tions, and were endowed with great parts, but who were not con- sidered worthy to serve their country in any genteel or confidential capacity, unless they would apostatize from the faith of their ances- tors, had deemed it prudent to leave their native land and retire to foreign climes. A Portuguese gentleman named Martinez, who in his travels through England had received great hospitality from Sir Henry Bedingfeld of Oxburgh, in Norfolk, invited the wanderers to Malaga, where they finally settled, and became naturalized Spaniards. " I sailed from Hull in the month of November, with my younger brother (poor fellow ! he died afterwards in Paumaron of the yellow fever), in the brig Industry, bound for Cadiz. The wind becoming adverse, we put into Margate Roads, and lay there for nine days. A breeze having sprung up from the northward, we went to sea again, in company with a Scotch brig which was going to Vigo, and we were within gun-shot of each other the next morning at daybreak. On the preceding night I had heard one of our own crew tell his comrade, that when he was ashore at Margate, a sailor from the Scotch brig had told him that their mate was in a conspiracy to murder the captain, and to run away with the vessel. I questioned LIFE OF THE A U7HUR. 23 our tar very particularly the following day, as the brig was not far off; and finding his account quite consistent, I went down into the cabin, and committed it to paper. Having inclosed it in a bottle, we ran alongside of the brig for Vigo, and hailed the captain. I then threw the bottle on the quarter-deck. The captain immediately took it up, and carried it below. He returned to the deck in a short time, and made us a very low bow; which, no doubt, was the safest way to express his gratitude for the favour which we had done to him. We parted company in a gale of wind at nightfall, and I could never learn anything afterwards of the brig, or of the fate of her commander. " On our arrival at Cadiz, we found the town illuminated, and there were bull-fights in honour of royal nuptials. We accompanied Consul Duff to the amphitheatre. He was dressed in a brilliant scarlet uniform ; and though he had cautioned us not to lose sight of him as soon as the entertainment should be finished, still my eyes wandered upon a thousand objects, and I most unfortunately missed him, just as we were departing from the amphitheatre. As there were hundreds of Spaniards in scarlet cloaks, it was probably on this account that the Consul had been particular in requesting us to keep him always in view. I walked up and down Cadiz till nearly midnight, without being able to speak one word of Spanish, and trying in vain to find the British Consul's house. At last, in uttei despair, I resolved to stand still, and to endeavour to make out some passing Frenchman, or some American, by the light of the moon, which shone brilliantly upon the white houses on each side of the street. The first person whom I accosted luckily turned out to be a French gentleman. I told him that I was a stranger, and that I was benighted, and had lost my way. He most kindly took me to the Consul's house, which was a long way off. " After staying a fortnight in Cadiz, we sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, for Malaga in Andalusia, a province famous for its wine, its pomegranates, its oranges, and its melons. " My uncles had a pleasant country-house at the foot of the adjacent mountains, and many were the days of rural amusement; which I passed at it. The red-legged partridges abounded in the environs, and the vultures were remarkably large ; whilst goldfinches 24 LIFE OF TfiE AUTHOR. appeared to be much more common than sparrows in this country During the spring, the quails and bee-eaters arrived in vast numbers from the opposite coast of Africa. Once when I was rambling on the sea-shore, a flock of a dozen red flamingoes passed nearly within gun-shot of me. " At my uncles' house, I made the acquaintance of an English gentleman who had been staying with them for some time. I found his conversation very agreeable, and we made arrangements to go to Cadiz by land, taking Gibraltar in our way. " It is a well-known fact that apes are found in no part of Europe except in Gibraltar. They inhabit the steepest parts of the moun- tain, and always prefer to be sheltered from the wind when it blows hard. I had letters of introduction to the Danish Consul, Mr Glynn. As good luck would have it, the wind changed to the eastward on the very morning on which the Consul had arranged to show us over the rock of Gibraltar. He said that the apes were sure to be on the move, as the change of wind would force them from their quarters ; and actually, on our way up the mountain, we had a fair view of the apes on their passage. I counted from fifty to sixty of them ; and an ape or two might be seen in the flock with a young one on its back. ^Eneas in his day reversed the thing, and carried an old animal not a young one. * Cessi, et sublato montem genitore petivi.' ' f YTe visited Algesiras, and there I saw the Hannibal seventy-four aground. Colonel Lyon of St. Roque gave us a full account of her misfortune. This brave old Irish gentleman, aware that there would be no promotion for him in his own country, on account of his adherence to the ancient creed, had left it with many others in early life, and entered the Spanish brigade. ' Interque moerentes amicos, Egregius properarat exul.' He told us he was standing in the fort of St. Roque just at the time that the Hannibal ran aground, and was forced to strike her colours to the guns of Algesiras. At that moment, unconquerable love of his deserted country took possession of his soul. He threw down a LIFE OF THE A UTHOR. 25 telescope, which he held in his hand, and burst into a flood of tears. After he had told us this, he added, that whilst Sir James Saumarez was hotly engaged with the forts, his son, a boy of only eleven years old, stole away from St. Roque, and ran round the bay to Algesiras. There he mounted the battery against which Sir James was directing his heaviest shot; and he helped to serve the guns till all was over. * On the boy's safe return home/ said the Colonel, ' though I admired his bravery, I was obliged to whip him for his rashness in having exposed himself to almost inevitable death.' I thought I could perceive a mark in the Colonel's face, as he said this, which led me to understand that there was something more than paternal anxiety for the boy's welfare which had caused him to apply the rod; and when I call to mind the affair of the telescope, I concluded that, had a French squadron, in lieu of an English one, been bom- barding Algesiras, young Lyon would have escaped even without a reprimand. " I left my travelling friend in Cadiz, and returned to Malaga on board a Spaniard, who kept close under Ceuta as we passed up the Straits of Gibraltar. It grieves me to add that, many years after this, on my return to England from the West Indies, in passing through my former companion's native town, I made inquiries after him, and I was informed by a gentleman who had sat upon the in- quest, that my companion had fallen in love, had wooed in vain, and hanged himself in despair. " More than a year of my life had now passed away in Malaga and its vicinity, without misfortune, without care, and without annoyance of any kind. The climate was delicious ; and I felt regret in making preparations to leave this old Moorish town on a trip to Malta. But the Spanish proverb informs us, that man proposes, and God dis- poses : * El hombre pone, y Dios dispone? Many a bright and glorious morning ends in a gloomy setting sun. " 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 my- self, in an alley near my uncles' house, saw a mattress of most sus- picious appearance hung out to dry. A Maltese captain, who had dined with us in good health at one o'clock, lay dead in his cabin 26 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. before sunrise the next morning. A few days after this I was seized with vomiting and fever during the night. I had the most dreadful spasms, and it was supposed that I could not last out till noon the next day. However, strength of constitution got me through it. In three weeks more, multitudes were seen to leave the city, which shortly after was declared to be in a state of pestilence. Some affirmed that the disorder had come from the Levant ; others said that it had been imported from the Havanna ; but I think it pro- bable that nobody could tell in what quarter it had originated. " We had now all retired to the country-house my eldest uncle returning to Malaga from time to time, according as the pressure of business demanded his presence in the city. He left us one Sunday evening, and said he would be back again some time on Monday ; but that was my poor uncle's last day's ride. On arriving at his house in Malaga, there was a messenger waiting to inform him that Father Bustamante had fallen sick, and wished to see him. Father Bustamante was an aged priest, who had been particularly kind to my uncle on his first arrival in Malaga. My uncle went immediately to Father Bustamante, gave him every consolation in his power, and then returned to his own house 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 occupied the pit. A Spanish marquis lay just below him. LIFE OF THE A UTHOR. ' Divesne prisco natus ab Inacho, Nil interest, an pauper, et infima De gente.' " Thousands died as though they had been seized with cholera, others with black vomit, and others of decided 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 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. 1 Plurima perque vias, sternuntur inertia passim Corpora.' The dogs howled fearfully during the night. All was gloom and horror in every street : and you 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 com- mencement of the pestilence ; and that 14,000 of those who re- mained in it fell victims to the disease. " There was an intrigue going on at court, for the interest of cer- tain powerful people, to keep the port of Malaga closed long after the city had been declared free from the disorder j 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 earthquakes ; 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 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 2S LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. midnight, 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 unmentionables (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.' However, it pleased Heaven, in its mercy, to spare us. The suc- ceeding shocks became weaker and weaker, till at last \ve felt no more of them. " I now began to think it high time to fly. I was acquainted with a Swedish captain, by name Bolin ; a most excellent man, and of surprising intrepidity and coolness. His brig Having been long laden with fruit from London, he was anxious to depart; and he formed a plan to escape from the harbour. There was no getting a regular clearance at the custom-house; neither would the Swedish Consul afford any assistance ; so I went to our own Consul, Mr Laird, with whom I was very intimate, requesting him to give me a certificate to signify that there had not been any sickness in the city for a long time : indeed, it was now in a remarkably healthy state. The Consul complied with my request. As he put the certificate into rny hand, 'My young friend,' said he, in a very feeling tone, 'I shall either have to see you sunk by the cannon of the fort, or hear of your being sent prisoner for life to the fortress of Ceuta, on the coast of Africa.' " I now endeavoured to persuade my remaining uncle to try his fortune with me ; but my entreaties were of no avail. He fell an early victim to the fever, which returned with increased virulence the following spring. A letter which I received from my worthy friend Mr Dillon of Alhaurin, some twenty miles from Malaga, informed me that it swept away 36,000 souls. " Our captain had taken the precaution to make out false papers, in case of need, on account of the war betwixt Great Britain and France. My brother was entered as a passenger, myself as a LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 29 Swedish carpenter. We slept on board for many successive nights, in hopes of a fair wind to carry us through the Straits. At last a real east wind did come, and it blew with great violence. The captain, whose foresight and precautions were truly admirable, had given the strictest orders to the crew that not a word should be spoken whilst we were preparing to escape. We lay in close tier amongst forty sail of merchantmen. The harbour-master, having come his usual rounds, and found all right, passed on without making any observations. At one o'clock, post-meridian, just as the Governor had gone to the eastward to take an airing in his carriage, as was his custom every day, and the boats of two Spanish brigs of war at anchor in the harbour had landed their officers for the after- noon's amusements, our vessel worked out clear of the rest, and instantly became a cloud of canvas. The captain's countenance, which was very manly, exhibited a portrait of cool intrepidity rarely seen: had I possessed the power, I would have made him an admiral on the spot. The vessel drove through the surge with such a press of sail, that I expected every moment to see her top-masts carried away. Long before the brigs of war had got their officers on board, and had weighed in chase of us, we were far at sea ; and when night had set in, we lost sight of them for ever our vessel passing Gibraltar at the rate of nearly eleven knots an hour. " The windjieaded us the following night. After thirty days of cold and stormy weather, we ran the risk of following a fishing-boat, for want of a pilot, and anchored off Brownsea Castle, near Poole, in Dorsetshire an adverse wind not permitting us to proceed up- Channel. Here we sent our papers and Consul Laird's certificate up to London. Contrary to. my expectations, we received per- mission, in due time, to proceed up the Thames. I had often told Captain Bolin, during the voyage, that we should be sent back to the Mediterranean for a regular bill of health ; but he thought other- wise, and he was right. " I brought over with me from Spain a superbly-mounted Spanish gun, and a beautiful ivory crucifix : they had been a present from the Duchess of Alva to my deceased uncle. The gun is the identi- cal one which the famous Duke of Alva had with him in the Low Countries : my uncle always intended it for his relative, the late Sir 30 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. Richard Bedingfield, Bart., of Oxburgh, in Norfolk, to which place 1 sent it. The crucifix had been taken away from Rome by a French general in 1796 : it was a present to my mother, and is now at Walton Hall. " Up to the time of my leaving England for the Mediterranean, I had been accustomed to drink a little beer at dinner ; but finding the taste of it bitter on my return, I put the glass down upon the table without swallowing its contents, and have never since drunk one drop of fermented liquors. " The pestilence at Malaga had shaken me considerably. Being but thinly clad, in coming up the Channel I caught a cold, which attacked the lungs, and reduced me to the brink of the grave. I must have sunk, had it not been for the skill of the late celebrated surgeon, Mr Hey of Leeds : he set me on my legs again ; and I again hunted with Lord Darlington. But the bleak and wintry wind of England ill suited a frame naturally chilly, and injured by what had already happened. I longed to bask in a warmer sun. " My paternal uncle having estates in Demerara, and my father having lately made a purchase there, for the benefit of his younger children, I petitioned to be allowed to go "out and superintend them, seeing that there was no chance of travelling with comfort in Europe, on account of the war, which had all the appearance of becoming general." Waterton left Yorkshire in the autumn, at the beginning of the hunting-season. As he was on his way to York to take the coach for London, he met Lord Darlington, who was just about to throw off, and who asked him where he was going. "To South America," was the answer. " That is no place for a young man like you," said the hunter ; " you had better get down and come with us ; we shall have a splendid season/' " No, my Lord," said Waterton, " I '11 go to South America." Lord Darlington wished him good-bye, and Waterton from the top of the coach looked with longing eyes after the hounds, till they disappeared in the distance. But though sorry enough to leave them behind, he was ever afterwards glad that he stuck to his determination. For the hunting-field, though delight- ful, is too much of a play-ground for a man to ride on it all his life. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 31 The die hesitated between a fox-hunter and a naturalist, and it was surely a good angel that turned it from sport to science. An ex- perienced fox-hunter gives pleasure chiefly to himself. A great naturalist advances truth, and has it in his power to delight and benefit thousands. Waterton stayed for a short time with his uncle Sir John Beding- feld in London. This gentleman's portrait used to hang in the dining-room at Walton Hall, and the face had a considerable family likeness to that of his nephew. On his breast was painted the ribbon and badge of the Guelphic order. The way in which he won that decoration showed that Sir John Bedingfeld resembled his nephew not only in features, but also in intrepidity. In 1796 the carriage of George III. was surrounded by an angry mob, pressing closer and closer. Mr Bedingfeld got on the carriage-step, and pulling his spectacle-case out of his pocket, pointed it at the crowd, and declared he would shoot the first man who advanced. Te crowd took the spectacle-case for a pistol, and the King's life was saved. Sir John Bedingfeld introduced his nephew to the President of the Royal Society. I have heard Mr Waterton say that he wore powder for the last time when he went with his uncle to dine with Sir Joseph Banks. The scientific Maecenas of his age was charmed with the quiet demeanour and the ardour for Natural History which he found united in the young squire. They became friends, and cor- responded till the death of Sir Joseph Banks. The Autobiography will carry on the history. " Sir Joseph Banks ever after took a warm interest in my adven- tures. He particularly impressed upon my mind his conviction that all low and swampy countries within the tropics are in general very insalubrious, and fatal to European constitutions. ' You may stay in them/ said he to me, ' for three years or so, and not suffer much. After that period, fever and ague, and probably a liver disease, will attack you, and you will die at last, worn out, unless you remove in time to a more favoured climate. Wherefore,' con- tinued he, ' as you have not your bread to seek, you must come home once in three years, at farthest, and then all will go right.' I followed this admirable advice with great success : still, I used to 32 LIFE OF THE A UTHOR. think that I ran less risk of perishing in those unwholesome swamps than most other Europeans, as I never found the weather too hot, and I could go bareheaded under a nearly equatorial sun without experiencing any inconvenience. Too often, however, might others have exclaimed with Admiral Hosier's ghost : ' Sent in this foul clime to languish ; Think what thousands fall in vain, Wasted with disease and anguish, Not in glorious battle slain.' " I sailed from Portsmouth in the ship Fame, Captain Brand, on November 29, 1804, and landed at the town of Stabroek, in ci-devant Dutch Guiana, after a passage of about six weeks. I liked the country uncommonly, and administered to the estates till 1812 : coming home at intervals, agreeably to the excellent and necessary advice which I had received from Sir Joseph Banks. In the month of April, 1812, my father and uncle being dead, I delivered over the estates to those concerned in them, and never more put foot upon them. In my subsequent visits to Guiana, having no other object in view than that of Natural History, I merely stayed a day or two in the town of Stabroek (now called George Town), to procure what necessaries I wanted ; and then I hastened up into the forests of the interior, as the ' Wanderings ' will show. Whilst I was on the estates, I had the finest opportunity in the world of examining the water-fowl of Guiana : they were in vast abundance all along the sea-shore, and in the fresh-water swamps behind the plantations. No country in the wo^Jd can offer a more extensive and fertile field to the ornithologist, than our celebrated colony of Demerara. " Notwithstanding the most guarded sobriety and abstinence on my part, the fever and ague would at times assault me with great obstinacy. The attacks could always be traced to my getting wet, and remaining in my wet clothes until the sun had dried them ; a custom never to be sufficiently condemned in any country. But, as Fe'nelon remarks, ' La jeunesse est pre'somptueuse : elle se promet tout d'elle-meme; quoique fragile, elle croit pouvoir tout, et n'avoir jamais rein a craindre : elle se confie legerement, et sans pre'- caution.' " When the ague came on to any serious extent, I would go up to LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 33 Mr Edmonstone's house, in Mibiri Creek, for change of air. He was the most valued friend I ever had in the world j and I seldom failed to recover my health during the time that I remained with him. His nephew, Mr Archibald Edmonstone, was all hospitality and kindness. He was very knowing in the woods, and would find out the fruit-bearing trees, where the finest birds in Guiana were to be seen. Nobody was better acquainted with the forest trees than he was. I have by me a catalogue of his, in which he enumerates nearly seventy trees found in that neighbourhood ; and he gives the size at which they generally arrive, their Indian names, their qualities, and their uses. " In the year 1808, Admiral Collingwood having sent despatches to Demerara for the Spanish Government in the Orinoco, I was requested by Governor Ross to be the bearer of them. On the nth of September in the previous year I had received from the Governor of Demerara my commission as lieutenant in the second regiment of militia. As no declaration had been previously required from me against transubstantiation, nor any promise that I would support the nine-and-thirty articles of faith by law established, nor any innuendoes thrown out touching ' the devil, the Pope, and the Pretender/ I was free in conscience to accept of this commission. It was the first commission that any one of the name of Waterton had received from Queen Mary's days. During that long interval, not a Waterton could be found vicious enough to regain his lost birthright at the incalculable sacrifice of conscience. " As my friend Mr Edmonstone was but in a poor state of health, I thought a change of air would be of service to him. At my earnest entreaty, his name was included in the commission. I now waited on the Governor for the last time ; and after he had imparted to me his private instructions on certain points which he wished me to ascertain during my stay in Angustura, he gave me my commission, together with the despatches of Admiral Collingwood, for the Captain-General of the Orinoco. The commission is dated August 2, 1808. " I sailed from Demerara in the Levina, flag of truce. After we had doubled Point Barima, we found the current rushing down with astonishing rapidity, and carrying with it enormous fragments C 34 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. of trees into the Atlantic Ocean. We soon found it necessary to get the vessel into the eddy water, close to the bank, and at all the points where the stream met us, we carried out a hawser in the small boat, and lashed it to the branches of the trees which overhung the river. By means of this perpetual warping, we worked our slow and tedious way up to Sacopan, and thence to the fort at Barrancas, where the Spanish officers provided us with a craft of their own. It was a long boat, schooner-rigged, and admirably adapted to the service for which it was intended. During the whole of the passage up the river, there was a grand feast for the eyes and ears of an ornitholo- gist In the swampy parts of the wooded islands, which abound in this mighty river, we saw waterfowl innumerable ; and when we had reached the higher grounds, it was quite charming to observe the immense quantities of parrots and scarlet aras which passed over our heads. The loud, harsh screams of the bird called the horned- screamer were heard far and near; and I could frequently get a sight of this extraordinary bird as we passed along ; but I never managed to bring one down with the gun, on account of the diffi- culty of approaching it. Whilst we were wending our way up the river, an accident happened of a somewhat singular nature. There was a large labarri snake coiled up in a bush, which was close to us. I fired at it, and wounded it so severely that it could not escape. Being wishful to dissect it, I reached over into the bush, with the intention to seize it by the throat, and convey it aboard. The Spaniard at the tiller, on seeing this, took the alarm, and im- mediately put his helm a-port. This forced the vessel's head to the stream, and I was left hanging to the bush with the snake close to me, not having been able to recover my balance as the vessel veered from the land. I kept firm hold of the branch to which I was clinging, and was three times overhead in the water below, pre- senting an easy prey to any alligator that might have been on the look-out for a meal. Luckily, a man who was standing near the pilot, on seeing what had happened, rushed to the helm, seized hold of it, and put it hard a-starboard, in time to bring the head of the vessel back again. As they were pulling me up, I saw that the snake was evidently too far gone to do mischief; and so I laid hold of it, and brought it aboard with me, to the horror and surprise of LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 35 the crew. It measured eight feet in length. As soon as I had got a change of clothes, I killed it, and made a dissection of the head. I would sometimes go ashore in the swamps to shoot maroudies, which are somewhat related to the pheasant ; but they were very shy, and it required considerable address to get within shot of them. In these little excursions I now and then smarted for my pains. More than once I got among some hungry leeches, which made pretty free with my legs. The morning after I had had the adven- ture with the labarri snake, a cayman slowly passed our vessel. All on board agreed that this tyrant of the fresh waters could not be less than thirty feet long. " On arriving at Angustura, the capital of the Orinoco, we were received with great politeness by the Governor. Nothing could surpass the hospitality of the principal inhabitants. They never seemed satisfied unless we were partaking of the dainties which their houses afforded. Indeed, we had feasting, dancing, and music in superabundance. The Governor, Don Felipe de Ynciarte, was tall and corpulent. On our first introduction, he told me that he expected the pleasure of our company to dinner every day during our stay in Angustura. We had certainly every reason to entertain very high notions of the plentiful supply of good things which the Orinoco afforded ; for at the first day's dinner, we counted no less than forty dishes of fish and flesh. The Governor was superbly attired in full uniform of gold and blue, the weight of which alone, in that hot climate, and at such a repast, was enough to have melted him down. He had not half got through his soup, before he began visibly to liquefy. I looked at him, and bethought me of the old saying, * How I sweat ! said the mutton chop to the gridiron.' He now became exceedingly uneasy; and I myseh had cause for alarm ; but our sensations arose from very different causes. He, no doubt, already felt that the tightness of his uniform, and the weight of the ornaments upon it, would never allow him to get through that day's dinner with any degree of comfort to himself. I, on the other hand (who would have been amply satisfied with one dish well done), was horrified at the appalling sight of so many meats before me. Good-breeding whispered to me, and said, ' Try a little of most of them.' Temperance replied, ' Do so at 36 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. your peril : and, for your over-strained courtesy, you shall have yellow fever before midnight.' At last, the Governor said to me in Spanish, * Don Carlos, this is more than man can bear. No puedo sufrir tanto. Pray pull off your coat, and tell your companions to do the same ; and I '11 show them the example/ On saying this, he stripped to the waistcoat ; and I and my friends, and every officer at table, did the same. The next day, at dinner-time, we found his Excellency clad in a uniform of blue Salempore, slightly edged with gold lace. " Don Felipe de Ynciarte had been a great explorer of Spanish Guiana in his day. He told me that he in person, dressed as a common sailor, had surveyed the whole of the sea-coast from the Orinoco to the river Essequibo. He let me look at a superb map of his own drawing. It was beautifully finished, and my lips certainly watered to have a copy taken of it. After my return to Demerara, I sent this courteous Governor a fine telescope, which had just arrived from London. I corresponded with him until I sailed to Europe for my health. During his government, beef was so plentiful, that the heads and tongues of the slaughtered oxen were thrown to the vultures. Indeed, beef was only one penny a pound, and the finest fish could be had almost for nothing. Canning's new republics,- which have arisen out of the former Spanish Transatlantic Empire, may have tended to enrich a few needy adventurers from Europe ; but, to the natives in general, they have proved a mighty curse. " Demerara was now shortly to be deprived of the valuable services of Governor Ross. His health had already begun to give way ; and, after he had battled with his disease for some time, he was obliged to consign his government over to other hands, and to try a voyage to Europe. He got well in his native country. But, alas ! we are here to-day-, and gone to-morrow. This brave officer, and truly just man, was ordered to Alicante in Spain, where he fell a victim to the prevailing fever. He was beloved to enthusiasm by the inhabitants of Demerara. On the 3ist of March 1809, we sent an address to him, expressive of our warmest gratitude for the many services he had rendered to us during the time that the colony was under his charge; and we made a subscription of 1500 guineas,' which token of public gratitude was presented to him with due form. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 37 " General Carmichael was Governor of Demerara in 1812, the year in which I took a final leave of the estates, and went far into the interior of Guiana in quest of the wourali poison. The General had one of the most difficult tempers in the world to manage. His disposition was generous, but at the same time it was exceedingly fiery ; although his ire soon subsided, unless it had received extra- ordinary and repeated provocation. He had such a profound veneration for royalty, that I do believe he would have sent his own brother out of the house, had he heard him speak with levity of the Prince Regent of England. In person he was shrivelled and weatherbeaten, and of diminutive stature ; but he was wonderfully active and vigorous in mind, notwithstanding his great age, for he must have been bordering on seventy at the time that he succeeded to the government of Demerara. My intimacy with him had a singular origin. " Knowing that I should spend very little time in the civilised parts of the colony, I had not paid my respects at headquarters after the General had succeeded to the government. Prior, however, to my going into the interior, I paid some visits to different friends residing up the river Demerara. About this period an English gentle- man of my acquaintance had been outlawed on account of a certain bill transaction. It was said that the party who had caused his disgrace had acted fully as much through private pique as through a love of justice. Indeed, the character of his principal accuser was none so good ; and one might have said to him with truth ' Stamina de nigro vellere facta tibi.' But this man held a high official situation, and it was as the sevenfold shield of Ajax to him. The unfortunate gentleman (for a gentleman he 'was in manners and appearance) was skulking up the river Demerara, in order to escape from the colony by the first favourable opportunity. The Governor had offered .500 for his apprehension. To add to his misfortunes, he was sorely afflicted with a liver complaint ; and, when he at last fell in with me, he told me that he had gone from place to place for three weeks in quest of me, that I might bleed him, as he dared not intrust himself to a surgeon, on account of the proclamation which was out against him. We were at breakfast, 38 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. about twenty miles up the river Demerara, at the house of a gentle- man who knew how to pity those in distress, when a negro came into the room, and informed us that a tent-boat with four oars was approaching. I looked out of the window, and saw the officers of iustice in it. Not a moment was to be lost. I directed our outlaw to go through the back-door into a field of standing canes. But so great was his perturbation, that he jumped out of the window ; and, in lieu of taking over a bridge close at hand, he ran through a filthy trench, nearly up to the arm-pits in water. It was not more than half-flood tide in the river ; and, on this account, the officers could not land at the house without walking up a square log of wood which had been placed on the mud, and formed part of the stalling, or wharf, for the accommodation of those who land when the water is low. On this log I took my stand, and disputed the passage with the officers of justice. They could not pass without forcing me up to the middle in mud, or making me retrace my steps up the log. When I thought there had been time enough allowed for the fugitive to make his escape, I returned to the house, they following close on my steps, and entering into it immediately after me. Not having succeeded in the object of their search, they returned to the boat, muttering curses in Dutch as they re-crossed the threshold. " The next day a warrant arrived, ordering me to appear immediately at Government House. Although I did not know the Governor personally, I was pretty well acquainted with his character ; and I was aware that there was only one way for me to act. So I resolved at once to take him on his weak side, if so it might be called. On my name being announced, he came into the hall. Whilst looking at me full in the face, he exclaimed, in a voice too severe to last long, < And so, sir, you have dared to thwart the law, and to put my late proclamation at defiance ? ' ' General,' said I, ' you have judged rightly; and I throw myself on your well-known generosity. I had eaten the fugitive's bread of hospitality when fortune smiled upon him ; and I could not find in my heart to refuse him help in bis hour of need. Pity to the unfortunate prevailed over obedience to your edict ; and had General Carmichael himself stood in the shoes of the deserted outlaw, I would have stepped forward in his defence, and have dealt many a sturdy blow around me, before LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 39 foreign bloodhounds should have fixed their crooked fangs in the British uniform.' 'That's brave,' said he; and then he advanced to me, and shook me by the hand. I stayed with him about a couple of hours, and told him of my intended expedition through the forests to the Portuguese settlements on the Rio Branco, adding that I had already observed the necessary formalities required by law from those who are about to leave the colony. He gave me permission to range through the whole of ci-devant Dutch Guiana for any length of time, and ordered my passport to be made out immediately. It bears his signature, and date of April 16, 1812. " To General Carmichael indirectly I owe one of the best watches that man ever wore. Many of those colonists who held public offices in Demerara had not been over and above scrupulous in their money transactions with the Government ; and the General had given it out that they should all be summoned, and be made to swear to their accounts. Amongst them was a Dutch gentleman (since dead) in the colonial service, who had still a large slice of conscience left. He told his friends that he was quite aware he could never make out a just balance-sheet, but that he would die before- he would take a false oath. The affair haunted him day and night, until he could bear it no longer ; and he actually proceeded up the river Demerara, to the house of his friend Mr Edmonstone in Mibiri creek, with the full intention of proceeding through the interior to the far distant Portuguese or Spanish settlements, as occasion might offer. I was staying with Mr Edmonstone at the time. As the fugitive officer was walking with me in the woods on the following morning, he entered more largely c-n the plan of his intended escape ; and he said he had arranged his little affairs pretty well before he left the town ; but that he had not been able to dispose of his watch, which was nearly new, and which had been made to order by Keating of London, who had charged forty pounds for it. My companion had been very attentive to me formerly, when he was at Govern- ment House in the time of Governor Bentinck. Knowing that a friend in need is a friend indeed, I put his watch into my waist- coat pocket, after having returned him his seals, and two rings attached to it, and told him I was his debtor for the sum of sixty guineas. This was in the spring of 1812, from which time to 40 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. the beginning of the year 1825 the 'Wanderings' form a continua- tion of these Memoirs. But as a few interesting occurrences took place in the interval betwixt these dates, I will pen them down in the following pages. During my expedition for the wourali poison, in the summer of 1812, General Carmichael had written to Lord Bathurst, to say that I was in the forests ; and that if he wanted a person to conduct an exploring enterprise, he thought that I might be safely recommended to his Lordship's notice. I had returned from the interior broken down with sickness, brought on by being reduced to eat unwholesome food, and by being exposed day and night to the inclemency of the rainy season. The doctors having ordered me to England without loss of time, I took my passage on board the Fame of Liverpool, Captain Williams. During my stay in Stabroek, previous to the vessel's leaving port, the General gave me the colonial despatches to be delivered to Lord Bathurst, and at the same time he presented me with a warm letter of introduction to his Lordship. We had a splendid ball on the eve of our departure. In the ball-room General Carmichael took the opportunity of intro- ducing me to Captain Peake of the Peacock sloop-of-war, appointed to be our convoy to Barbadoes. On the following morning, when we had got up our anchor, Captain Peake came alongside of the Fame, and invited me to stay with him on board the Peacock until we should reach Barbadoes ; adding, that when he had got all the fleet fairly under weigh, he would not fail to send his boat for me. This, unfortunately, was our last interview. By eleven o'clock it blew a gale of wind ; and as the Fame made a poor hand of it when close-hauled, we drifted bodily to leeward, lost sight of the fleet in the evening, and at last barely managed to fetch Grenada, in lieu of making Barbadoes. In the meantime, Captain Peake, having brought his fleet to an anchor in Carlisle Bay, returned to the coast of Guiana, where he fell in with an American man-of-war. She was his superior in men and guns, but not in valour ; for our brave captain fought her to the last, and he was cut in two by a cannon ball just at the time that his own vessel went down. He was held in great esteem by the colonists ; and I have heard that they raised a monument to his memory in the church at Stabroek. " The voyage to Europe did not recruit my health. When I had LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. landed in Liverpool, I was unable to proceed to London with the despatches ; so I sent them by the mail, and wrote a letter of apology to Lord Bathurst. His Lordship returned a very kind answer, and requested that I would repair to London when I had got better of the tertian ague, as he wished me to explore Madagascar. When I had rallied a little, I proceeded to London, and waited on him. He told me that I should have to explore the interior of Madagascar ; with permission to visit Monomotapa and the Sechelles Islands, &c. ; and that a man-of-war would take me out early in October fol- lowing. This was in the month of May 1813. The ague still annoy- ing me cruelly, I wrote to Lord Bathurst, and begged to resign the commission. Horace once condemned himself for running away, Relicta non bene parmnlh. It was for me to have condemned my- self too on this occasion for I never acted so much against my own interest as when I declined to go to Madagascar. I ought to have proceeded thither by all means, and to have let the tertian ague take its chance. My commission was a star of the first magnitude. It ap- peared after a long night of political darkness, which had prevented the family from journeying onwards for the space of nearly three cen- turies. I can fancy that it beckoned to me, and that a voice from it said, ' Come and serve your country ; come and restore your family name to the national calendar, from which it has been so long and so unjustly withdrawn ; come and show to the world that conscience, and not crime, has hitherto been the cause of your being kept in the background ; come into the national dockyard, and refit your shat- tered bark, which has been cast on a lee-shore, where merciless wreck-seekers have plundered its stores, and where the patriots of yesterday have looked down upon it with scorn 'and contempt, and have pronounced it unworthy to bear its country's flag.' I ought to have listened to this supposed adviser at the time: but I did not; and the star went down below the horizon, to appear no more. Few people, except those who have been to seek adventures in far distant countries, are aware of the immense advantages of a Govern- ment commission, especially when the traveller is in our own colonies. With it, his way is clear, and his story is already told : everybody acknowledges his consequence, and is eager to show him attention. Without it, he is obliged to unfold his object in view at LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. every step ; he must fight his own cause through surrounding diffi- culties, and lose many a day for want of somebody to take him by the hand. In 1824, I was at St John's, in the island of Antigua, and had to attend at a public office prior to my going on board the mail-boat for Dominica. I had lately arrived from the United States, very much out of health ; and I wore one of those straw hats, with a green riband round it, so common in the republic. The harbour-master, who presided, and outwardly appeared much of a gentleman, eyed me, as I thought, contemptuously on my entering the room. I was right in my conjecture, for he seemed determined to wear out my patience ; and he kept me standing above half an hour, without once asking me to take a seat, although there were plenty of chairs in the room. In returning to the hotel with the captain of the mail-boat, I observed to him how very deficient the harbour-master had been in common courtesy. He replied, that as soon as I had gone out of the door of the office, the harbour-master stopped him to inquire who I was ; and when he had told him that I was an English gentleman, travelling in quest of Natural History, he remarked that he had been mistaken in his surmise, for that he had taken me for a damned Yankee. "In the autumn of 1814, as I was shooting with my excellent brother-in-law, Mr Carr, I had a proof that, although a man may escape with impunity in distant regions, he may stumble on misfor- tune at home, when he least expects it. My gun went off acciden- tally. I had just rammed the paper down upon the powder, when the ramrod, which was armed with brass at both ends, passed quite through my fore-finger, betwixt the knuckle and the first joint, with- out breaking the bone the paper and ignited powder following through the hole, and rendering its appearance as black as soot. I repaired to a tenant's house and poured warm water plentifully through the wound, until I had washed away the marks of the gun- powder ; then collecting the ruptured tendons, which were hanging down, I replaced them carefully, and bound up the wound, not for- getting to give to the finger its original shape as nearly as possible. After this I opened a vein with the other hand, and took away to the extent of two-and-twenty ounces of blood. Whilst I am on phlebotomy, I may remark, that I consider inflammation to be the LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 43 root and origin of almost all diseases. To subdue this at its earliest stage has been my constant care. Since my four-and- twentieth year, I have been blooded above one hundred and ten times, in eighty of which I have performed the operation on myself with my own hand. This, with calomel and jalap mixed together as a purgative, with the use of rhubarb in occasional cases of dysentery, and with vast and often-repeated potations of powdered Peruvian bark as a restorative, has enabled me to grapple successfully with sickness when I was far away from medical aid. In cases where laudanum was absolutely necessary, I was always extremely cautious, having seen far too many instances of the distressing effects produced in other people by the use of this insidious drug. My severest trials of sickness were those when I had to contend with internal inflammation, at the very time that I was labouring under tertian ague. In those cases, the ague had to bear all the burden, for I knew that it was not a mortal complaint, whereas the inflammation was not to be trifled with for one moment. Under this impression I would fearlessly open a vein, and would trust to the Peruvian bark, at a later period, to counteract the additional encouragement which I had been forced to give to the ague through the medium of the lancet. I am now, I think, in as perfect health as a man can be. But let me finish the account of my accident. On reaching home I applied a very large poultice, which was renewed twice every day. The inflammation never extended beyond the knuckles, and I recovered the full use of the finger in due course of time. "Early in the year 1817, an expedition was formed to explore the river Congo, in Africa. I went to London and requested Sir Joseph Banks to allow me to accompany it as a volunteer. He acceded to my wishes. One day, whilst I was in his room, there came a letter to inform him that the steam-vessel appointed for the expedition did not answer expectations ; for its powers were not considered ade- quate to make way against the downward stream of the Congo. ' Then/ exclaimed Sir Joseph, with great emphasis, ' the intended expedition will be a total failure ; ' and putting his hand upon my shoulder, My friend/ said he, ' you shall not go to Africa. There will be nothing but disappointment and misfortune, now that the plan of proceeding by steam cannot be put in execution to the ex- 44 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. tent which I deem absolutely necessary for the success of the enter- prise/ He then requested me to prolong my stay in London, and to meet the scientific gentlemen who formed the expedition for a day or two at his house, in order to impart certain instructions to them. T did so ; and showed them many things which, I think, could not fail to prove useful * to them in their preparation of specimens for the benefit of Natural History. Above all things, I tried to impress upon their minds the absolute necessity of temperance ; and I warned them particularly never to sleep in their wet clothes. " I left London for Yorkshire, and from thence went to Liverpool, where I embarked on board the Indian, Captain Balberney, for Per- nambuco, in Brazil. Whilst I was on the other side of the Atlantic, I read an account in one of the English papers, which stated that the Congo expedition had entirely failed, and that several of the gentlemen whom I had met at the house of Sir Joseph Banks had perished in it. " In the winter of 1817-18, I was in Italy with my friend Captain Alexander of the navy. During our stay in the Eternal City, I fell in with my old friend and schoolfellow, Captain Jones. Many a tree we had climbed together in the last century ; and, as our nerves were in excellent trim, we mounted to the top of St Peter's, ascended the cross, and then climbed thirteen feet higher, where we reached the point of the conductor, and left our gloves on it. After this, we visited the Castle of St. Angelo, and contrived to get on to the head of the guardian angel, where we stood on one leg.t "As Captain Alexander and myself were returning over Mount Cenis, I fancied that the baggage had broken loose on the top of the * " SOHO SQUARE, Saturday evening. " MY DEAR SIR, "I return your manuscript, with abundant thanks for the very instructive lesson you favoured us with this morning, which far excelled in real utility every thing I have hitherto seen. " Your obliged and faithful, "JOSEPH BANKS." t While in Rome Waterton laid before the Pope, Pius VII., a memorial on the religious condition of the regions of South America, which he had visited. In this he points out the decay of education and of morals which had followed the expul- sion of the Jesuits. [Eo.J LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 45 carriage, so I immediately mounted on the wheel to see what was the matter. As bad luck would have it, I came in contact with the window, and smashed the glass : two pieces of the pane, an inch long, penetrated a little above the cap of the left knee, on the inner side, and broke short off. This was at ten o'clock of the night. I put my thumb firmly on the wound, until the Captain had brought one of the lamps to bear on it. On seeing the blood flow in a continued stream, and not by jerks, I knew that the artery was safe. Having succeeded in getting out the two pieces of glass with my finger and thumb, I bound the wound up with my cravat. Then cutting off my coat-pocket, I gave it to the captain, and directed him to get it filled with poultice, in a house where we saw a light at a distance. The next day a strong fever came on, so we stopped until it had abated, and then we went on again, and stopped again on account of the fever, and again proceeded, until at last we reached Paris ; the wound being in a deplorable state. Here Dr Marshall, a friend from Demerara, took me under his care until I was in a state to pro- ceed to England. He showed exquisite skill in his treatment of the wound, and would have done wonders for it had I stayed a suffi- cient length of time with him. " On my arrival in London, Father Scott, of the Society of Jesus, came immediately to my assistance. Having inspected the wound, he took his departure without loss of time, and he brought back with him the celebrated Mr Carpue, to whose consummate knowledge and incessant attention I owe the preservation of the limb, and probably of life too. The knee continued stiff for nearly two years ; but, by constant exercise, and by refusing the aid of a walking-stick, it lost at last all rigidity, and is now as sound as though it had never been injured. I have often thought since, that I should have laid my bones in France, but for the unwearied exertions of my friend Captain Alexander." His prolonged course of observation on the Demerara estates was of immense advantage to Waterton, when he continued his studies in that great university of Natural History, the primeval forest Most European travellers come fresh from their native country to the tropics. The number of new and exciting sights is bewildering, and 46 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. hence their reports of what they see are frequently inaccurate. The years which Waterton had spent in Demerara enabled him to take into the forest the experience of an Indian. An acute mind is necessary for noting phenomena with discriminating precision, but as the knowledge of what to look for can alone insure correct results, the naturalist is more dependent on his previous studies than on his quickness at the time. Though both qualifications were possessed by Waterton, it is to the stores of information he acquired in the colony that the faultlessness of his observations in the forest is due. In the year 1806 Mr Waterton of Walton Hall died, and his eldest son, Charles, succeeded to his estates. The property was compact, but not extensive. Had Waterton inherited the whole of the lands which his ancestors held at the time of the Reformation, his fortune would have been not less than ^40,000 a year. But the greater part of the ancient estate was confiscated by Henry VIII., and the small corner left with the Watertons had been ill able to support the heavy burden of constant double taxes and of occasional fines, which the penal laws imposed upon Roman Catholics. Even some park land close to the house had been sold to defray a tax, of which the non-payment would have caused the loss of all. A man who, having just attained his majority, succeeds to an estate, seldom considers sufficiently its condition. He feels that the incumbrances belong to the past, the enjoyment to the present. He tries to forget the burden, and prefers to be free for a time, at the expense of being secure. The new squire of Walton was guilty of no such impru- dence. Study and travel had already taught him, at the age of twenty-four, that a man's means are to be measured, not by his income, but by his expenditure. He examined the condition of his estate, and fitted his way of living to his revenue. His economy touched nothing which it was right to maintain. Charity, the repair of buildings and fences, these he did not stint ; but against the ex- penses which to a thoughtless man seem most important, and to a thinking man least so, he pulled his purse-strings tight. He esteemed hospitality one of the first duties of a gentleman, and he made it known that his table was always open, without invitation, to his neighbours ; but during the whole fifty-nine years which he reigned at Walton he never gave a dinner-party in the ordinary LIFE OF THE A UTHOR. 47 sense of the term. This honest stand against a conventional folly was at first considered extraordinary : his guests soon found that where there was the least show there was the kindliest welcome. The simple table of Walton became famous for its geniality, its social ease, and its pleasant conversation. All who came, and they were many, felt that it had a charm far above that of costlier feasts. During the twenty years which followed his succession to Walton Hall, Waterton made four journeys to the New World in quest of Natural History. The first journey was in 1812, when he travelled into the interior of Guiana partly for exploring purposes, and partly to obtain some pure wourali poison. Since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh the wilds of Guiana had been but little disturbed by Euro- pean footsteps. That scholarly marauder sought in the east of South America what Pizarro had found in the west. It was an old tradition of the Indians that far in the depths of the primeval forest, between the Orinoco and the Amazons, was a great inland sea, Lake Parima, upon whose shores stood the ancient and wealthy city of El Dorado. To lead captive the princes of El Dorado, and to rifle their golden hoards, was the object of Raleigh. Ambition and lust of, gain urged him to penetrate those remote regions. He failed, and the melancholy history of his captivity and cruel death have thrown a veil over his crimes. The motives of his successor in travel were different. Alone, unaided, without hope of gain, Waterton tracked those path- less wilds. He knew that the towers of El Dorado were but castles in the air : he sought to find out if Lake Parima was also a myth. This, however, was but a minor purpose of his journey. His main design was to collect a quantity of the wourali poison. This famous composition is used by the Indians of Guiana to envenom their arrows, and the history of its deadly effect was one of the astonish- ing tales which the early voyagers across the Atlantic told to wonder- ing listeners on their return. It seemed possible that a substance so powerful might have medicinal virtues. The forests of South America had already yielded a drug of superlative value. A worth- less-looking substance, which the Jesuit missionaries stripped from the trees in the woods, turned out a more beneficent treasure than that gold which was at once the hope, the prize, and the bane of the warrior conquerors. The golden wealth of America led to the depopu- 48 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. lation of states, but quinine has made habitable some of the finest regions of the earth. By its aid the European is enabled to with- stand, for a time at least, the fevers of the tropics, and it has almost deprived ague of its terrors. It was the hope of finding another such blessing for mankind that led Waterton so far into the solitudes of Guiana. He thought it likely that the wourali poison might prove a specific for hydrophobia and tetanus. Frightful spasm is the prominent symptom of those awful maladies; complete quiescence is the effect of the administration of wourali. It seemed probable that this material, hitherto a means of death, might save life where medi- cal art was still powerless. But the mode of preparing wourali was unknown to Europeans, and such specimens of it as the Indians brought down to the colony were always dilute and often effete. It was only far in the interior that the pure poison could be obtained, and its ingredients learned. With these purposes Waterton started on his tedious and dangerous expedition. A desire to do good, a true love of science, spurred him on, and religion sustained him through all hardships and perils. The route which Waterton took is related in his " Wanderings." His extreme point was Fort Saint Joachim, on the Rio Branco, which flows into the Rio Negro, a branch of the Amazons. The course of his journey may briefly be described by saying that he went in the line of the river Demerara, and returned in that of the river Essequibo. How very little was known of the country is shown by the fact that there is no good map of it of earlier date than the beginning of the second quarter of this century. Several had been published by Dutch map-makers before that time : they contain the names of some of the chief rivers and of a few places on the sea board, but inland there is a blank, only broken by a Lake Parima, varying in size according to the fancy of the engraver, with some- times the city of El Dorado on its banks. No map, whether Dutch or English, gives any exact information for more than a few miles up the Demerara and Essequibo rivers. The Indians alone knew the paths of the forest. Waterton's description of his track, told without any pretence, is so clear and so accurate, that Sir Robert Schomburgk, who afterwards took the same journey, declared that he was entirely guided by Waterton's directions. Schomburgk was LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 49 the first to publish a good map, and it is still the best, of Guiana, though it is impossible to avoid the expression of a wish that he had been as candid as he was laborious. He has copied whole passages from the " Wanderings," with no other change than the transforma- tion of an interesting into a heavy style, and notwithstanding all his obligations to Waterton, he has never once mentioned him in his books with respect Waterton attained his main object. He penetrated the mystery of the wourali poison, and obtained a supply of it in its strongest form. He thus describes its preparation : * " A day or two before the Macoushi Indian prepares his poison, he goes into the forest in quest of the ingredients. 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 for about 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 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. " Having thus found the necessary ingredients, he scrapes the wourali vine and bitter root into thin shavings, and puts them into a kind of colander 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 sufficient quantity has been pro- cured, the shavings are thrown aside. He then bruises the bulbous stalks, and squeezes a proportionate quantity of their juice through * " Wanderings." D 50 LIPE OF THE AUTHOR. his hands into the pot. Lastly, the snake's 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 off 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 answer the expectations, 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 time suspend it over the fire to counteract the effects of dampness." Waterton did not, as careless writers have asserted, suppose that the fangs and the ants were the active parts of the compound. He has distinctly pointed out that the essential substances were the vegetables, and while adding, with true scientific caution, that it would not be proper to assume without direct proof that the animal ingredients were altogether inoperative, he went on to show that superstition alone had probably suggested their employment. The manufacture of wourali was, with the Indian, a solemn and gloomy operation, which partook of the magical. Man is prone to invest natural objects with properties corresponding to the effects they produce upon his own imagination. Thus because the cry of the owl in the stillness of night filled the mind with a species of awe, an evil influence was believed to exist in the very body of the bird, and hence the witches in " Macbeth" throw an " owlet's wing " into their cauldron. For the same reason they cast in the liver of a blaspheming Jew, the nose of a Turk, the lips of a Tartar, the scale of a dragon, the tooth of a wolf, &c., which were presumed to carry with them the concentrated malignity of the beings from which they came. The finger of a " birth-strangled babe " was even supposed to infuse into the mixture the cruelty of its unnatural mother. When such a power was ascribed to fragments which were merely typical of living propensities, much more would the ignorant conclude that actual or fancied venom would be sure to retain its deadly properties, and accordingly Shakespeare's witches take for granted that a toad. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 51 an " adder's fork," and a " blind worm's sting," will increase the potency of their unearthly brew. Arguing from old European superstitions, Waterton surmised that the wild, untaught Indian was the dupe of similar delusions. " If," he says, " enlightened man lets his better sense give way, 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 posterity." Most of the medicines set down by physicians in the complicated pre- scriptions of former days were merely traditional remedies, which had no effect upon the disease, and modern science has not yet emanci- pated itself entirely from the false and hasty inferences of the savage. Both in South America, and after he got back to England, Waterton made numerous experiments with the wourali poison. The main result was the discovery, that if artificial respiration be maintained till the action of the poison has passed off, life may be preserved. With regard to the second and minor object of his journey, Waterton could hear nothing of the inland sea, though he questioned the Indians closely, and he came to the conclusion that the flooding of a great plain in the rainy season was the origin of the tradition of Lake Parima. On his return from the forest, Waterton made a short stay in the colony, sailed thence to Granada, visited the island of Saint Thomas, and so to England. He had suffered from fever in Guiana, and after his return a tertian-ague troubled him for some time. But he longed to enjoy again the wonders of the tropics, and in 1816 sailed for Pernambuco. In its neighbourhood he collected many beauti- ful birds. He did not travel far into the interior of Brazil, but his stay was not without adventures. " One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far from Monteiro, these adventures were near being brought to a speedy and 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 orchard. In the 52 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. long grass under the tree, apparently a green grasshopper was flutter- ing, 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 that 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, intending to make sure of it behold the head of a large rattlesnake appeared in the grass close by : an instantaneous spring backwards prevented fatal consequences. 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 unwilling, to make a sure and deadly spring. He shortly after passed slowly from under the orange tree to the 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." From Pernambuco, Waterton sailed for Cayenne. He examined its fine gardens, and made a good many observations in Natural History. One evening, while sitting under a cinnamon tree, a branch fell upon his head. The insect, which the colonists call a knife- grinder, had cut the branch half through, when the weight of the foliage snapped it off. This bough he brought home. An expedi- tion in search of tropic birds was foiled by bad weather. Waterton proceeded by way of Paramaribo to Demerara, where he spent six months studying the habits of the birds of the forest, and preparing the skins of the most brilliant. He stuffed more than two hundred upon a plan which he had himself invented. He had observed that every specimen in every museum he had visited was shockingly deformed. The skins were shrunk, the lips and nose of the quadrupeds shrivelled up, and altogether the skin LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 53 and straw representative was a hideous caricature of the flesh and blood original. For fourteen years, Waterton kept the subject before his mind. At last the right idea dawned upon him as he lay in his hammock revolving the problem which had baffled him so long. He tried his scheme the next morning, and found that he had discovered a method by which the bodies of animals could be represented in their true shape and attitude, and the heads with their living and prevail- ing expression. The ordinary plan of stuffing is to cure the skin with arsenic, or some other poison. This prepared skin is puffed out with cotton, moss, or straw, and propped up with wire, which always produces, says Waterton, " a disagreeable stiffness, and de- rangement of symmetry." His process was widely different. He soaked the skin in corrosive sublimate dissolved in alcohol. The mixture penetrated every pore, and being anti-putrescent, preserved the skin from decay, and being poisonous, secured it from the depredations of insects. As the solution kept the skin moist and flexible for several days, it could all this while be moulded at will. The hollows and protuberances of the animal frame, the play and action of feather and limb, the physiognomy of pain or pleasure, rage or mildness, could be faithfully impressed upon the skin, which once more assumed the shape and gesture its wearer bore in life. Pro- tected from wind, sun, and fire, the remodelled skin was dried very slowly, and the corrosive sublimate caused it to stiffen without shrinking, till the form and features given to it by the artist became as firm set as if they had been carved in marble. This is the general principle of Waterton's discovery. The details of the process, and the modifications necessary in applying it to the various classes of animals, quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and insects, are described by himself in the present volume. The superiority of his plan is signally displayed in his own magnificent collection. The speci- mens are the likeness of the creatures which God made, instead of the misshapen monstrosities which usually disgrace our museums. Some of his beautiful workmanship is more than half a century old, and the specimens still look as natural and fresh as when first put up. Waterton had raised taxidermy from a sorry handicraft to an art, and for this very reason his system has not been extensively adopted. When he gives directions for preserving birds, he warns the learner 54 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. that he must acquire the same knowledge of their anatomy that a great sculptor possesses of the human frame ; that he must be per- fectly acquainted with their general outline ; that he must yet further be versed in the exact curvatures and proportions of the several parts; that he must be familiar with their attitudes, movements, and physi- ognomy. " Enter a museum, and you will probably," he said, "find that what was once a bird has been stretched, stuffed, and wired by a common clown." A plan which preserved the contour of every muscle, the convexities and concavities, the delicate lines of expres- sion, the elasticity of surface, the truth and freedom of posture, was useless to stuffers who were ignorant of nature's pattern. The curators of museums, who have the power to commence a reform by encouraging study and observation, are usually themselves mere closet-naturalists. Immured among moth-eaten and distorted speci- mens, they come to think that the form of an animal is of little consequence. Not a few of them have barely any knowledge of anatomy, and to them all animals are alike in their internal organisa- tion, for all contain straw. They take more delight in spying a spot of colour upon the wings of birds, or the hides of beasts, and in establishing what .they are pleased to call a new species, than in contemplating the marvellous conformation, internal and external, of the animal world. No wonder that they espouse wild theories to account for the origin of species they have themselves invented. The time, nevertheless, must come when some great museum will do for the outside of animals what the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons does for their internal structure, and then Waterton's discovery will obtain the credit it deserves. The second journey of Waterton terminated in 1817. He came back to England, stayed a few months, passed over to the Continent, again returned home, and continued to yearn for the distant forests of Guiana. He sailed for the New World in February 1820, and on arriving in Demerara, he>. established himself in a ruined house, formerly the home of his friend Mr Edmonstone. Here he once more gave himself up to the passion which possessed him, the pursuit of Natural History. He scrutinised the habits of the creatures in their native wilds, carefully studied their anatomy, and applied his knowledge to endowing their skins with the form and animation LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 55 of life. His delight in specimens free from flaws made him always ready to run risks in catching animals of prey without disfiguring their skins. His artistic zeal led him twice into a hazardous con- flict with the coulcanara snake, or Bush-master. The negroes and Indians were accustomed to decapitate the monster, and the speci- mens in museums were completed by wooden heads, which were furnished with exaggerated false teeth the size of a tiger's. Waterton captured his snakes alive. The first was fourteen, the second ten feet long. He seized this last by the throat, and walked home grasping its neck with both hands, and with its folds tightly coiled round his body, a victorious Laocoon. The details of these combats, which may be read in the " Wanderings," illustrate a pre- dominant trait in his character. "Prudence and resolution," he said, " ought to be the traveller's constant companions ; " and his caution was not inferior to his courage. His daring exploits were never the ebullitions of thoughtless foolhardiness. He took an accurate measure of the nature of the danger, and the energy with which he faced and foiled it was the boldness of calculation. After staying some time at Mibiri, Waterton made an expedition up the Essequibo to observe the big alligators, or caymans, and to try and secure an unmutilated specimen. He travelled more than 300 miles, and when he reached their haunts he fished for them with a shark-hook. The alligators contrived to swallow the bait and leave the hook. An Indian was shown the shark-hook, shook his head, and laughed at it. He constructed a hook of a different pattern with pieces of wood, and it was soon firmly fixed in the jaws of an alligator, more than ten feet long. The natives wanted to shoot him before they hauled him on to the bank, or he would rush at them, they said, and worry them. Waterton insisted that he should be pulled out alive, or his hide would be perforated. Wrapping the sail of his canoe round the end of the light mast, Waterton went down on one knee, and intended, if he was attacked, to thrust the spar down the throat of the open-mouthed cayman ; but when the landing was effected, the quick eye of the naturalist perceived that the savage was cowed, and with a readiness of resource which never failed him, he flung down his mast, bestrode his prize with a leap, twisted the fore-legs on to the back, and, 56 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. befriended by his early hunting experience, he managed to keep his seat till the plunging of the animal was succeeded by exhaustion. The detractors of Waterton viewed the incident in opposite lights, for some pronounced it impossible, and others insisted that it had too little danger to be chronicled for a feat. Anything is easy to certain people, provided they have not to do it themselves. With the example of Waterton to aid them, his valorous critics would probably have hesitated before vaulting on a ten-foot cayman, fresh from his native waters, and taking their chance of being thrown by his furious plunging, and killed by a snap of his jaws. Finding themselves in the company of a fierce old alligator, it is not un- likely that their first thought would have been how they could quick- liest get off with a whole skin, which was the case with Waterton, only it was the cayman's skin, and not his own, that he was anxious to keep complete. He succeeded, and the reptile may be seen in his collection, with the hook which the Indian made by its side. Waterton landed at Liverpool from his third journey in 1825, and was compelled to pay a custom-house duty of 20 per cent on the value of his specimens. The Treasury had the power to remit a tax which was no advantage to the revenue, and which was most oppres- sive to the naturalist. An appeal was made to the Lords of the Treasury, and they exacted the uttermost farthing. Waterton was indignant at the wanton penalty imposed on his expenditure, toil, and dangers, and the contempt which was shown by the English Government for the interests of science. Every abuse of power has its victim, whose wrongs rouse indignation, and obtain for after- comers the justice denied to himself. Having mulcted Waterton, the Lords of the Treasury never ventured to repeat their barbarous conduct, and all the specimens of future travellers were admitted duty free. Enthusiasm long sustained has its alternations of reaction and lassitude, and a slight incident is often sufficient to determine the change. The harsh usage he received from the Treasury was the circumstance which damped for a time the ardour of Waterton. But the passion returns with rest, and the flame was re-kindled as easily as it was quenched. When Wilson's "Ornithology of the United States" fell into his hands, the naturalist revived in him. He was seized with a desire to see the birds which Wilson described, LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 57 and he set sail for New York in 1824, He was delighted with the people and their institutions, and says, in one of his letters, that, in his opinion, no Englishman's education is complete till he has been to the United States of America. He went on to Canada, returned to the States, proceeded to. the West Indies, and ended by re-visiting his favourite haunts in Guiana, where he renewed his old pursuits. He got back to England in 1825, and in the same year he pub- lished the history of his travels, under the title of " Wanderings in South America, the North- West of the United States, and the Antilles, in the years 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824." The pharisees of Natural Science stigmatised the author for an unscientific amateur, because he did not belong to any of their trades'-unions, because he had not disfigured his vigorous, idiomatic English with the jargon of systematists, and because he had studied nature in the forest, and not according to their vain traditions. They had overlaid the beautiful architecture of the animal world with a plaster of their own fabrication, and every one who laboured to unveil the true temple was, in their eyes, a rude, untutored Goth, who had not been initiated into the mysteries of academic technicalities and artificial systems. Few things are easier than to feign an hypothesis; nothing is more difficult than to establish a law of nature ; and many in every generation aspire to the honours which belong to the discoverer on the strength of the ephemeral fallacies of the theoriser. A more general objection was made to the adventure with the cayman, which critics of little perspicacity thought fabulous. Men of weak nerves do not plunge into primeval forests, and spend years in tracking wild beasts and serpents through tangled wilds. In such situations an admixture of the romantic is natural, and the want of it becomes the marvellous. The peculiarity of Waterton is, that he forebore to recount his inevitable perils. He pointed out that the dangers were far less than imagination would picture ; he mentioned his severe illnesses with callous brevity, and was silent upon a thou- sand risks and difficulties which travellers are wont to relate with fond complacency. The sole occasion on which he departed from his rule was in the two or three battles he waged to procure perfect specimens, and he gave the particulars because they were connected in his mind with his Natural History, and not with his personal 58 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. prowess. No one with the smallest discernment could have failed to see at a glance that his book bore the stamp of scrupulous exactness, and freedom from boasting. Sydney Smith was not deceived. He was always on the look-out for foibles upon which to exercise his satire and humour, and least of all spared false pretension. But in his laudatory article upon the " Wanderings " in the Edinburgh Review, there were none of the coarse imputations of obtuser critics. He was far too acute to be unable to distinguish a high-spirited English gentleman, enthusiastic in his pursuit of Natural Science, from an ostentatious charlatan, who, by force of being a liar, hoped to palm himself off for a hero. Waterton in his Autobiography threw down the gauntlet to his accusers, and they did not care to pick it up. " I am fully aware that certain statements in the * Wanderings ' have procured me the honour of being thought nearly connected with the Munchausen family. Unenviable is the lot of him whose narratives are disbelieved merely for want of sufficient faith in him who reads them. If those who have called my veracity in question would only have the manliness to meet me, and point out any passage in the book which they consider contradictory or false, I would no longer complain of unfair treatment. If they can show that I have deviated from the line of truth in one single solitary instance, I will consent to be called an impostor ; and then may the ' Wanderings ' be trodden under foot, and be forgotten for ever. Some people imagine that I have been guilty of a deception in placing the nondescript as a frontis- piece to the book. Let me assure these worthies that they labour under a gross mistake. I never had the slightest intention to act so dishonourable a part. I purposely involved the frontis- piece in mystery, on account of the illiberality which I ex- perienced from the Treasury * on my return from Guiana. I had * "TREASURY CHAMBERS, May \%th. " GENTLEMEN, " The Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, having had under their consideration your report of the loth, on the application of Mr Charles Waterton, for the delivery, duty free, of some birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, and insects, col- lected by him in Guiana, and recently imported from Demerara, I have it in com- LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 59 spent many years in trying to improve the very defective process universally followed in preparing specimens for museums. The reader will see by the letter signed Lushington that I was sentenced to pay pretty handsomely for my exertions. Stung with vexation at the unexpected contents .of that peremptory letter, and annoyed at the detention of my collection, I determined not to communicate to the public the discovery which I had made of preparing specimens upon scientific principles ; but, in order to show what I had done, I placed the nondescript in the ' Wanderings ; ; hoping that its appear- ance would stimulate to investigation those who are interested in museums. Should there be any expression in the ' Wanderings ' by which the reader may be led to imagine that I wish to pass off this extraordinary thing either for the head and shoulders of a man, 1 os homini sublime;' or for those of an ape, ' Simla, quam similis turpissima bestia nob is ; ' it is my earnest desire that the said ex- pression may be considered null and void. I have no wish whatever that the nondescript should pass for any other thing than that which the reader himself should wish it to pass for. Not considering myselt pledged to tell its story, I leave it to the reader to say what it is, or what it is not. " Some of my encounters with wild beasts may appear hairbreadth escapes, and very alarming things to readers at their own fireside ; but to me, in the forest they appeared not so. We are told that death itself is not heeded when the battle rages. This I believe ; for when honour, fame, or duty urge a determined man forwards, I apprehend that he knows not what it is to fear. Thus, the soldier marches boldly on, even to the cannon's mouth ; the fox-hunter, in conscious pride, flies over the five-barred gate ; and half way down Dover's cliff ' hangs one that gathers samphire.' But, I ask, would a ' pam- mand to acquaint you that my Lords have informed Mr Waterton that, if he will specify the articles which he intends to give to public institutions, my Lords will not object to their being delivered duty free ; but that, with regard to the specimens intended for his own or any private collection, they can only be delivered on pay- ment of the ad valorem duty of 20 per cent. ; and I am to desire you will give the necessary directions to your officers at Liverpool, in conformity thereto. " I am, &c. " (Signed) J. R. LUSHINGTON. " Commissioners of Customs." 60 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. pered menial' storm the deadly breach? would a gouty alderman descend the rock of Ailsa, based by the roaring ocean, in quest of sea- fowls' eggs ? No ; their habits and their ailments would disable or prevent them ; and, probably, nothing could induce them to face the apparent danger. Now, as for myself, I was well fitted out for ad- ventures. I went expressly to look for wild beasts j and having found them, it would have been impossible for me to have refrained from coming in actual contact with them. " I have only to repeat, that I particularly request those readers of the * Wanderings ' who may still doubt my word, to meet me in person, and then show me any passage in the book which they may suspect to deviate from the truth. It will give me pleasure to enter fully into the point in question ; and I shall not have the slightest doubt of being able to convince them that they are wrong in their surmises. If they should refuse to comply with this my reasonable and just request, and still determine to consider me a disciple of the celebrated Baron, then to them I say, ' Gentlemen, fare ye well ! In my conscience, I have laboured hard to please you, and to consult your taste ; but I find that I have lost my time, and, I may add, my patience too. I humbly crave your forgiveness for having offered you food which has proved so very unpalatable to your stomachs. I will learn wisdom for the time to come ; and I promise you that I will not throw my jewels to the sty a second time.' " So far for the ' Wanderings.' Most part of the work was written in the depth of the forest, without the help of books, or the aid of any naturalist. I could not refrain from making a few observations on it ere I concluded these Memoirs, Memoirs, by the way, from the pen of a private rover. Had our religion not interfered with our politics, my early days would probably have been spent in the ser- vice of my country. Then, no doubt, there would have been matter in these Memoirs much more interesting to the reader than that which is now submitted to his perusal. "When I reflect that the faith of -my ancestors has been most cruelly assailed for centuries by every man in power, from the Prime Minister of England down to the county magistrate ; when I see it rising again triumphant in every part of the empire ; and when I observe multitudes, in every rank of life, returning to its consoling LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 61 communion, I call to mind, with infinite delight, those beautiful verses of Dryden : ' A milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged, Fed on the lawns, and in the forests ranged. Without unspotted, innocent within, She feared no danger, for she knew no sin. Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds A.nd Scythian shafts, and many- winged wounds Aimed at her heart ; was often forced to fly, And doomed to death, though fated not to die.' " I have made no mention of my political feelings in these Memoirs. My politics, indeed, claim little notice. Being disabled by Sir Robert Peel's Bill from holding even a commission of the peace, I am like a stricken deer, walking apart from the rest of the herd. Still I cannot help casting a compassionate eye on poor Britannia, as she lies on her bed of sickness. A debt of eight hundred millions of pounds sterling (commenced by Dutch William oi glorious memory) is evidently the real cause of her distressing malady. It is a fever of the worst kind : it is a disorder of terrible aspect. It is a cancer, so virulent, so fetid, and so deeply rooted withal, that neither Doctor Whig nor Doctor Tory, nor even the scientific hand of Mr Surgeon Radical, can give any permanent relief to the suffering patient. Alas, poor Britannia ! it grieves my heart to see so fine a personage reduced to such a state. Thank Heaven ! we Catholics have had no hand in thy misfortunes. They have come from another quarter, where thy real enemies have had all their own way, and have played the game so sadly to thy cost. " Here I terminate these Memoirs ; and I put away the pen, not to be used again, except in self-defence. Thus a musician of old (tired, no doubt, with scraping) hung his fiddle on the wall, and said,^ * Barbiton hie paries habebit.' " WALTON HALL, December 30,- 1837." Here ends the first instalment of Waterton's Autobiography, published twelve years after his return from his last expedition to the forests. He has thus summed up the events of this time : 62 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 11 In 1829 I became the happiest man in the world ; but it pleased Heaven to convince me that all felicity here below is no more than a mere illusive transitory dream, and I bow submissive to its ador- able decrees. I am left with one fine little boy, who ' looks up to me for light ; ' and I trust that I shall succeed in imparting it to him ; for my sister, Mrs Carr, and her invaluable husband, together with his aunts, Miss Edmonstone and Miss Helen Edmonstone, know no bounds in their affection to him, and in their good offices to myself, who stand so much in need of them. "Since the year 1825, 1 have not been in the transatlantic forests, but have merely sauntered from time to time in Belgium, in Holland, and in Germany, with my above-mentioned sisters-in-law. I was in Belgium during the revolution for real liberty in religious matters. I went into the large square at Bruges to see the Belgians engage their enemies. As the balls whistled on all sides, I thought I might as well live to see the row another day ; so, observing a door half open, I felt much inclined to get under cover : but, just as I arrived at the threshold, a fat old dame shut the door full in my face. Thank, you, old lady, said I : * Felix quern fatiunt aliena pericula cautam! " Waterton was married in the chapel of the English convent at Bruges. His wife was daughter of the Charles Edmonstone men- tioned in the " Wanderings," and of whom he says in one of his letters that he was the greatest friend he ever had. This gentleman was a junior member of the ancient Scottish house of his name, and he spent the latter part of his life at Cardross Park, a place originally granted to his family by Robert Bruce. His best years were passed in Demerara. He was a tall man, with a martial countenance and commanding aspect, which did not belie his disposition, for he had headed fifteen expeditions against the Maroons. Honours and a pension were offered him by the Crown, and he modestly declined both. He had married a grand-daughter of the chief of the Arowak Indians, a tribe remarkable for delicate beauty. His daughter Anne was loveliness itself, and the mind which lighted up her features was worthy of its frame. The marriage of Waterton was supremely happy in everything except its brevity. Shortly after she had given birth LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 63 to a son, Mrs Waterton died. Grief overpowered her husband, and for a week he spoke to no one. Religion gradually brought comfort to his mind, but he never sufficiently forgot his sorrow to be able to talk of her. He put up over the mantelpiece of the usual sitting- room a picture of Saint Catharine of Alexandria, which had some resemblance to her ; and when he sat with his eyes fixed upon it, or was lost in reverie, those who were nearest to him knew what was in his thoughts. Such recompense as earth could supply for his loss, Waterton found in the society of his sisters-in-law, who, at his earnest entreaty, came to live with him. He might have once more become a wan- derer in the wilds of Guiana, if duty and affection to his son had not kept him at home. He had ceased to belong to himself, and his future travels were confined to excursions on the Continent. Two of these journeys are the principal subject of the sequel to the former part of his Autobiography, and his own narrative will now carry on the story. " Barbiton hie paries habebit." * This beautiful line from Horace is the last in the last page of the former Essays. When I laid down the pen on the 3oth of Decem- ber 1837, I thought that I should never take it up again. But it has only slumbered for a few short years ; and the reader will see in the preface to this second little volume, what ' has called it from the bed of rest.' * My adventurous bark is once more rash enough to try its fortune on the high sea of public opinion, where many a stouter vessel, better rigged and better manned, has met an awful and un- timely fate. " The first volume of Essays had not been much more than a year on the ' world's wide stage/ when I began to sigh for the comforts of a warmer sun ; and I should have left these realms of ' Boreas, blustering railer, 3 to those who are fonder of his sway than I am, and have gone to the South, had not a letter from my friend Mr Ord, the accomplished biographer of poor Wilson, informed me that he was * " The volume which I now present to an indulgent public is an unsolicited donation to the widow of my poor departed friend Mr Loudon." Preface to Essays, Series II. 64 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. on his way from Philadelphia, to pass the summer with us. Upon the receipt of it, I gave up all thoughts of Italy and her lovely sky ; and set about putting a finishing hand to my out-buildings, the repairs of which had been begun in 1834, and carried on at intervals. They are an immense pile, composing an oblong square of forty-five yards in length, and thirty-six in breadth, independent of the dog- kennel, fowl-house, sheds, and potato-vaults. They had been erected by my forefathers at different periods, when taxation was compara- tively in its infancy, and good old English hospitality better under- stood than it is at the present day. These buildings were gradually going to ruin, through length of time and inattention to them during my absence ; but they are now in thorough repair. Every depart- ment, from the sty to the stable, has been paved, and the pavement joined with Roman cement. In front of them there is a spacious area all of stone, and behind them a stone walk equally done with cement. The entire drainage consists of one master drain and two smaller ones tributary to it, and their mouths are secured by an iron grate, movable at pleasure. I have been particular in this descrip- tion, from no other motive but that the reader might know by what process I have been able to banish the Hanoverian rat, for ever I trust, from these premises, where their boldness had surpassed that of the famished wolf, and their depredations in the long run had ex- ceeded those of Cacus, who was known to have stolen all the milch cows of Hercules. The rats have made themselves so remarkably scarce, that if I were to offer 20 sterling money for the capture of a single individual in or about any part of the premises, not one could be procured. History informs us that Hercules sent the Harpies neck and crop into Stymphalus ; and that Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain drove all the Moors back into Africa; and in our times we see thousands of poor Englishmen forced into exile by the cruel workings of Dutch William's national debt. When I am gone to dust, if my ghost should hover o'er the mansion, it will rejoice to hear the remark, that Charles Waterton, in the year of grace 1839, effectually cleared the premises at Walton Hall of every Hanoverian rat, young and old. " The time had now arrived when my two sisters-in-law, my little boy, and myself, were to wend our way to the delicious realms of LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. Southern Europe. But I stop to narrate a circumstance which took place before our departure. It may probably be of considerable value in future cases of hydrophobia. As a police officer, by name Phelps, was going his night-rounds in the town of Nottingham, he heard a dog barking in a hole which had been dug for the founda- tion of a weighing-machine. His well-known humanity led him down to the place ; and as he was lifting the dog up a little ladder which he had brought with him for the purpose of descent, he re- ceived from the animal a bite upon his upper lip and nose. The dog, on being delivered from his prison, ran away with speed, and was never heard of from that time. He must have belonged to some gentleman ; for he was a pointer, and in too good condition to be the property of a gamekeeper. The wound which poor Phelps had received was dressed by a neighbouring surgeon, and nature did the rest. But some six or seven weeks after this, the officer be- gan to feel that there was something wrong within him. He became better and worse alternately for two days; and then his disease showed itself with every mark of virulence. He said to those around him that he was going mad, and that it was all over with him : and then he let fall a tear as he mentioned his poor wife and children. After this, according to the minute account which was drawn out by Doctor Williams of Nottingham, he proceeded to the watch-house, and packed up his books which lay there ; and turning to his com- panions, * Good-bye/ said he to them ; ' I shall never come here again/ And then he went to Mr Davison for medical aid. Mr Davison took him into his surgery, and on the poor officer getting sight of running water, he was seized with convulsions. All was done that could be done. The faculty of Nottingham, consisting of Doctor Williams, Doctor Percy, Mr Attenburrow, Mr Sibson, and Mr Davi- son, had soon arrived ; and they put in practice whatever their well- known knowledge of medicine could suggest, or their pharmacy offer, to save this useful and respected man from an untimely grave. But all in vain. The terrible disease, with its concomitant horrors of spasmodic affection, baffled all their skill, and set their united science at utter defiance ; for death was hurrying their patient with unrelent- ing fierceness to his last resting-place. Whilst things were in this deplorable state, an express was sent off to me late in the eveningj 66 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. and I proceeded to Nottingham without any loss of time, in hopes hat the application of the wourali poison might be the means of rescuing poor Phelps from the fate which nothing in the practice of modern medicine seemed able to avert. When I had reached Not- tingham with my friend Sir Arnold Knight, who had joined me at Sheffield, the unfortunate police-officer was no more. I saw him in his own house, lying on his back in bed, with his family weeping over his remains. Death had not changed his countenance, which had a serenity diffused throughout it, not to have been looked for in the features of one who had suffered so much. Poor Phelps was an honour and a credit to his employers, and I heard it remarked that the corporation of Nottingham would experience a great loss in being deprived of his trusty services. Indeed, there must have been something * more than common in him/ as my Uncle Toby said of poor Le Fevre, for everybody in Nottingham seemed 'concerned for him/ Ere I left the town, I told the medical gentlemen present that I had business at home just then which called me back ; but that I would return in a day or two ; and that, if in the meantime they would muster their scientific friends in Nottingham, and from the country round, I would be ready with the wourali poison, and then we might see by experiment if it could be used with safety ik case of hydrophobia and locked jaw. u I revisited Nottingham on the day appointed ; and we all went to the medical school, where the wourali poison was used before a crowded audience. The process tried was nearly the same as that which I have described in the 'Wanderings,' when the ass (which was called Wouralia ever after) was operated upon until it was apparently dead, and then restored after which it lived at Walton Hall for four- and-twenty years in excellent health. On this occasion in Notting- ham, two asses received the poisoned spike in the shoulder; and after yielding under the pressure of its destructive powers, they were both restored by the process of artificial respiration. The first trial was a very long one ; and the operator, my worthy friend Mr Sibson, exerted himself in a manner that astonished all the company. The artificial respiration was kept up for seven hours, before the prostrate animal exhibited the least symptom of returning motion, and that was first observed in a momentary quiver of the eyelid. This ass LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 67 died, I think, on third day after the experiment. But circumstances had intervened, to the influence of which its death might in part be attributed. The second case occupied a much shorter space of time, and was quite successful. The ass is still alive. " Every person present seemed convinced that the virulence of the wourali poison was completely under the command of the operator ; and that, by this artificial process, its malignant qualities could always be subdued. In a word, the company present came to the conclusion that it can be safely applied to a human being labouring under hydrophobia, one of the most terrible and fatal of all the diseases that have ever afflicted mankind. Mr Sibson has most wonderfully improved the bellows, and thus rendered the process much less laborious. If e has by him a fair store of the very poison which I brought from the forests of Guiana in 1812. I myself have also a good supply of it, as pure and as potent as it was on the day in which I procured it. " I wish it to be particularly understood that I do not claim for myself the merit of this discovery, should it prove successful. I certainly paved the way to it by going in quest of the poison, which I acquired in its pure state at my own expense, and at the cost ot my health. But to Professor Sewell of the Veterinary College in London is due the merit of applying it in cases of hydrophobia. He was the first, I believe, who ever suggested the idea ; and so certain was he of a favourable result, that I heard him declare before Sir Joseph Banks and a large company of scientific gentlemen, that were he unfortunate enough to be bitten by a mad dog, and become infected with hydrophobia, he would not hesitate one moment in having the wourali poison applied, as he felt confident that the application of it would prove successful. When all had been arranged at Nottingham relative to the application of the wourali poison in cases of hydrophobia, I took my leave of the gentlemen assembled, and returned home. "Spring passed rapidly away, and when summer had set in, I began to make arrangements of a domestic nature for a visit to the Eternal City, not having been there since the year 1818. When I had finished the arrangement of my domestic affairs, I called up the gamekeeper, and made him promise, as he valued his place, that he 68 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. would protect all hawks, crows, herons, jays and magpies, within the precinct of the Park during my absence. He promised me faithfully that he would do so ; and then, wishing him a good time of it, I handed my two sisters-in-law, the Miss Edmonstones, into the car- riage j I placed myself and my little boy by them ; the two servants mounted aloft, and in this order we proceeded to Hull, there to catch the steamer for Rotterdam. " I had a little adventure at Hull scarcely worth recounting, saving for its singularity. As I was standing at the window of the hotel, I saw an old and weather-beaten tar ruminating on the quay which flanks the Humber ; and as I had nothing to do at the time, I thought I would go and have a little chat with him ; and so I took my hat and went to the place where he was standing. ' This is nearly the spot, my honest tar/ said I to him, * where I first embarked for Spain in the brig Industry of this port. It is just now forty years ago, and a rough passage we had of it to Cadiz ; we were all but ashore, one dark night at Cape St Vincent. The captain's name was Lettus ; but he must be dead and buried long ago, for he was then apparently quite at his best ; and what with so long a war, and so many perils of the sea, no doubt he is safely stowed away in Davy's locker.' ' I saw him, sir,' said the tar, ' no later than yester- day morning.' * And where is he?' said I. ' He is safely moored in the house for poor decayed sea-captains, and he is as well and as happy as is possible for a man of his years to be.' " I bade my informer good-bye, and having stepped into the inn for my umbrella, as the weather threatened rain, I went down the street in quest of my old commander. I found him sitting on a bench facing the south, with a pipe in his mouth, and I recognised him at first sight, although disappointment, time, and poverty, had made deep furrows in his face. On asking him if he remembered the interesting affair he had with a brig bound to Vigo, about forty years ago, his eye brightened up, and he went through the whole story with wonderful minuteness. I then gave him a brief account of the many gales I had weathered since I bade him farewell at the sally-port in Cadiz ; and he, on his part, told me that our mate, Mr Davis, had got drowned in the Baltic ; and that he himself had con- tinued to buffet the waves for a mere livelihood, till at last, old age LIFE OF THE A UTHOR. 69 and poverty had dismasted him ; but that he was now safe in dock, thanks to the generous people of Hull j and that he would be com- fortable there, in a good snug berth, with plenty of excellent food, till death should break his crazy vessel into pieces. " Having settled the little demands against us at the Victoria Hotel, we went on board the Seahorse, and steamed for Rotterdam. Beauti- ful, indeed, is the former sedgy marsh of Holland, and rich the people who have drained and fertilised it. There is a placidity and frankness in the Hollanders which at once gain the good-will of the traveller on his first appearance amongst them. The uniformity of their country, and the even tenor of their tempers, appear as though the one had been made for the other. You may walk the streets of Rotterdam from light to dark without encountering anything in the shape of mockery or of rudeness.* I could see nobody pressing forward with a hurried pace up the street, as though the town were on fire behind him ; nor a single soul whose haughty looks would give me to understand that I must keep at a respectful distance from him. No bird ever preened its plumage with more assiduity than the housemaid in Holland removes every particle of dust and dirt from the fagade of her neat and pretty dwelling. It seemed to me that she was at work with her water-pail and broom from the beginning of the week till late on Saturday night. " Had the sun shone with sufficient warmth and brightness, I could have fancied myself in the cultivated parts of Demerara, a country once the pride of Holland, ere we broke in upon it during the revolutionary war with France, and changed the face of all that she had done before us. Our raising immense taxes, and the profli- gate expenditure of them, did neither suit the means nor the notions of these frugal colonists ; whilst our overbearing demeanour as con querors soon gave them to understand that it was time for them to go elsewhere. In 1824, when I last visited the wilds of Guiana, * The manners of the Dutch have improved ; for Ray, the naturalist, who tra- velled through the Low Countries in 1663, says, "As to what relates to the common people of Holland, it must be confessed they are surly and ill-bred, which is the reason that no strangers that know the country will deal with inn- keepers, waggoners, boatmen, porters, and such like, without bargaining before- hand." My own experience agrees with Waterton's. [ED.] 70 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. scarcely a Dutchman could be seen either in Demerara or in Esse- quibo. Numbers of my former foreign friends had sunk into the grave, and numbers had gone to join their brethren in Surinam, the last remaining colony of Holland on the terra fir ma of South America. " The stork, whose shape and habits at once announce him to be a lover of swamps and quagmires, is carefully protected in Holland- The natives know his value ; and so good an understanding exists betwixt themselves and this bird, that he appears in the heart of their towns without the slightest symptoms of fear, and he builds his huge nest upon the flat of their chimney-tops.* Would but our country gentlemen put a stop to the indiscriminate slaughter of birds by their ruthless gamekeepers, we should not have to visit Holland in order to see the true habits of the stork, nor roam through Germany to enjoy the soaring of the kite, a bird once very common in this part of Yorkshire, but now a total stranger to it. " The Japan monsters shown in the museum at the Hague are clumsy fabrications. I could make better work with my left hand. The moth has perforated them to a great extent. 'Tis time, indeed, that they were cast out of the way. One of them put me in mind oi Ovid's ' Famine/ ' Hirtus erat crinis, cava lumina, pallor in ore, Labra incana situ, scabrae rubigine fauces.' But a sight of Potter's bull repays one for the penance done in examining these mouldering imitations of what may be termed death alive. " Celebrated as the museum at Leyden is in most of its depart- ments, that of zoology, as far as preparation goes, is wretched in the extreme. It is as bad as our own in London, and we might fancy that Swainson had been there with his own taxidermy, marring every form and every feature. It is lamentable, indeed, that such cele- * "It is thought a very wicked thing to hurt them," says Southey, writing from Leyden in 1825. " They make their nests, which are as large as a great clothes-basket, upon the houses and churches, and frequently when a house of church is built, a wooden frame is made on the top for the storks to build in." [ED.] LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. brated naturalists as those of Leyden do not see their error in adhering to the old way of preparing specimens, or, seeing it, do not try to improve it. Their own knowledge of nature, and their innate powers of perception, ought to give them strong hints that the usual way of mounting specimens in zoology is unsound, and ought to be abandoned, and that some other plan must absolutely be adopted ere a single sample can be produced that would stand the test of scientific examination. The bird, with fresh-looking feathers on a shrunk and shapeless pinion ; the quadruped, whose nose is dwindled into half its size ; and the serpent, wrong at every fold, had far better be exhibited as mere skins, than be presented to public view bereft of every feature they possessed in life. As skins, at all events, we could look upon them with composure, and leave the room without disappointment. " The change of religion in Holland threw its magnificent churches sadly into the background, and there they have remained ever since. Nothing can exceed the nudity and gloom of the great church in Haarlem, where the famous organ, that paragon of melody, is said to surpass every other organ in the known world. Whilst I~was listen- ing to its varied sounds, I thought of a nightingale pouring forth its own sweet song in an unfrequented hayloft. There is not a single pious ornament left in this church. The walls seemed damp and mouldy; and a ship or two in miniature, probably mementoes of some great naval victory, are seen suspended in the vast and vaulted vwd. But whatever may be the notions of these honest people concerning the value of holy objects to assist the mind of man during the time of his devotions, they have done everything for the comfort of the body throughout the whole extent of their country. Hence we see in Holland as fine country-houses, as lovely gardens, as well-regulated hotels, and as comfortable cottages, as any flesh and blood on earth can possibly wish for. I like the Dutch. I know of no country in Europe where human institutions appear to be upon a better footing. We ephemeral travellers, in passing through a country like butterflies on a sunny day, merely flutter over this flowery bank, or sip a drop of nectar on that lily at the side of the road; but I am persuaded, if we tarried in Holland for a sufficient length of time, and became acquainted with the chiefs of 72 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. the land, we should have spacious stores of information opened to our view. The zoological treasures of private individuals from Java, and Sumatra, and Surinam, must be very valuable ; and the personal adventures of the Dutch in those remote countries are no doubt replete with instruction. Surinam, so famous for its far-extending forests, its rivers, plains, and swamps, is still possessed by Holland, as I have remarked above. " Although Holland offers every comfort to the weary traveller, and every luxury to the epicure, we scarcely find an Englishman, not in commerce, who is resident in any part of this country ; whilst in Belgium, just at the other side of the ditch, a country so like unto Holland that it might be taken for Holland itself, English families swarm like congregated swallows towards the close of September. Our countrymen are fond of what they call seeing sights ; and there is undoubtedly a greater sphere for this in Belgium than there is in Holland, for Holland contracted hers considerably by gutting her churches and shutting their doors six days out of seven ; whereas the Belgians have preserved their religious ornaments, and they keep their churches open throughout the whole week. If we may judge by the crowds of Englishmen who are for ever sauntering up and down these Belgian churches, we must come to the conclusion that they are pleased with what they see. And still it can only be a feast for their eyes, as they know little or nothing of the ceremonies which are performed, or of the instruction which is imparted through the medium of pictorial representations. ' How have you got over your time, to-day ? ' said I, one afternoon to an acquaintance, who, like Mr Noddy's eldest son in Sterne, was travelling through Europe at a prodigious speed, and had very little spare time on his hands. He said that he had knocked off thirteen churches that very morning ! "Whilst myself and sisters-in-law were at Amsterdam admiring some of the pictures which form part of the immense treasures pro- duced by the Dutch artists, my eye was riveted to the spot by one which will be gazed upon in after-times with extreme interest. The spectator will see represented, with great fidelity, an act of self- devotedness noways inferior to that which has rendered famous the name of a Roman light-horseman, who mounted his steed and rode LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 73 it headlong into a yawning abyss in the Forum, by way of appeasing the wrath of the immortal gods. The name of this modern Curtius was Van Spek, commander of a brig of war in the Batavian service. During the late insurrectionary conflict with Belgium, this intrepid seaman, perceiving that all was lost, and that he could no longer command his vessel under his own national colours, he determined to blow it up and perish in the wreck. He disclosed his resolution to the crew, and told them to retire from danger when he should give the signal. Having invited as many Belgians as possible on board his devoted man-of-war, he made the promised signal to his men, and then went down below. There he struck a light, and applied it to the train which he had already prepared. In an instant the man-of-war blew up, and Van Spek and his enemies perished in the ruins. However Pagan history may sanction dismal facts like this, Chris- tianity shudders at the very thought of them. Whilst we admire the determined courage of the Dutch commander, we lament that his patriotism should be stained by the commission of so foul a deed. " Now that so many of our own swamps have been drained, and their winged inhabitants forced to disappear through hunger, or have fallen before the gun of the insatiate fowler, we must go to the morasses of Holland if we wish to improve our knowledge of water- fowl in their native haunts ; for Holland is still very rich in water- fowl, and the naturalist may obtain his wished-for information there, in an enjoyable manner, and on easy terms. " I saw- much in Holland to put me in mind of Demerara at every step. The mildness, and urbanity, and good-humour of the inhabit- ants, had gained so much upon my feelings, that I felt a gloom come over me when I had arranged all to go to Antwerp a fine old city, but not much to my taste. I had formerly known Monsieur Kats the naturalist; and on the morning after my arrival, I went down the Rue de Convent to shake him by the hand, and to have an hour or two in his museum. He had succeeded admirably in breeding and rearing the summer duck of Carolina. He told me that he seldom failed ot success, if he placed the eggs under a domestic hen ; but that if he allowed the duck to sit on her own eggs, it was always a failure, for the newly-hatched birds were too delicate to go amongst the herbage with her, in this cold and variable climate. He showed 74 LIFE OF THE A UTHOR. me a huge baboon from the coast of Africa. This apparently half- reasoning brute would lay hold of a broom-staff, and manage to bring within his reach a crust of bread which had purposely been placed beyond the range of his chain. As the time of our departure for Bruges was close at hand, I thanked Monsieur Kats for his civilities to me, and then I bade him farewell. " What is it that makes the Catholic town of Bruges so attractive to English families, many of whom have so unfavourable an opinion of the faith of their ancestors ? ' Will the stork intending rest, On the billows build its nest ? Does the bee derive its store From the bleak and barren shore ? ' No ! Bruges, then, must have that within it which can afford the comfort and convenience denied to these good families in their own country; 'otherwise they would never think of leaving Old England, to take up a permanent abode in this place. To me Bruges has charms inexhaustible ; and did my habits allow me to prefer streets to woods and green fields, I could retire to Bruges and there end my days.* Our second Charles was fond of Bruges. He became a member of its ancient society of archers, which still flourishes in its pristine vigour ; and you may see the portrait of this regal profligate in the hall of the establishment, which you enter from the Rue des Carmes. In the same street is the renowned convent of English nuns, under the spiritual direction of the patriot Abbd de Foere, whose charities and talents are an honour to Belgium, and of vast advantage to the inhabitants of this fine old city. Would that some of the boarding-schools in our own country could turn to their profit the example of the watchful ladies in this holy establishment. Difference in faith need be no obstacle to scholastic arrangements. * Southey, who visited it in 1815, says in a letter to his friend Rickman, "Bruges is without exception the most striking place I ever visited, though it derives nothing from situation. It seems to have remained in the same state for above two hundred years : nothing has been added, and hardly anything gone to decay. The air of antiquity and perfect preservation is such, that it carries you back to the age of the Tudors or of Froissart." [ED.] LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 75 Into this convent no love-letters can ever gain admittance ; nor has a scheming adventurer the smallest chance of coming at wealth, by laying plans to inveigle the unsuspecting victim into his snares. The generous nuns are unwearied in their exertions to prepare those in- trusted to their charge, both for this life and for the next. There are members of my family one, alas ! no more who have reason to bless the day in which they entered this elegant retreat of plenty, peace, and piety. The church of the convent is worthy of the name in every point of view ; and its marble altar, originally from Rome, is a masterpiece of ornamental architecture. On the wall over the grate in the audience- room for visitors, there hangs a picture of a boy laughing at his own performance on the fiddle. So true is this to nature, that you can never keep your eyes from gazing on it whilst you are sitting there. Were thieving innocent, and the act injurious to none, I would set my brains at work how to purloin this -fascinat- ing picture ; and then, if I succeeded in adding to it the representa- tion of a dead bittern suspended by the leg in the Academy of Arts, I would consider myself owner of two paintings, at which you might gaze and gaze again, and come again and gaze, anchnever feel fatigued with gazing at them. " At the fatal period of the suppression of monasteries in Belgium, when Joseph II. had plundered their treasures and dispersed the monks, his government was so fearful of public execration, and of the consequences arising from a proceeding so unjust, that it actually hired wretches from the lowest of the people, and clothed them in the habits of the exiled religious. Under this scandalous disguise, they were made drunk, and went up and down the streets as monks, to show the people how glad they were to be released from their religious vows. "At Ghent theie is a splendid show of osteology in the museum, under the scientific direction of Monsieur de Dutys, whose urbanity and knowledge of Natural History enable his visitors to pass many a pleasant hour in the apartments. When the monks flourished in this city, there was a huge chaldron called St Peter's pot. Above half an ox, with the requisite vegetables, was boiled in it every day, and distributed gratis to the poor of that district. When a couple were to be married, the curate never inquired what means they had 76 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. of support, if they assured him that they had access to St Peter's pot. Times are altered. Pikes and halberds now glitter on the spot where once this savoury chaldron used to boil. ' Fugere pudor, verumque, fidesque, In quorum subeire locum, fraudesque dolique.' " In Ghent, too, is the Bdguinage, a convention of females who assemble for public prayer every day in a handsome church be- longing to the establishment. They are not recluses, nor under the observance of perpetual vows. It is a kind of partial retirement for them from the disgust or fascinations of a cheating world. They pass their time in doing good works and in holy prayer, far removed from the caustic gossip of the tea-table, or from the dissipations of nocturnal gadding. It was a Beguine who attended Corporal Trim so charitably, after he had got wounded in the knee at the battle of Landen. " But it is time to travel onwards. Were I to tarry long in the different abodes of art and science in this interesting country, I should terrify the reader by the apparition of two large volumes at least : whereas, it is only my intention to present him with one of small extent, like the song of the storm-cock in the month ot December. I must skip from Ghent to Aix-la-Chapelle, and just remark, as I am going on, that the valley of the Meuse, on a fine warm day in July, appears as rich, and beautiful, and romantic, as any valley can well be on this side of ancient paradise. " And still I must not leave Dendermond behind me, without a few words on the most feeling and pathetic story ever told by the tongue of man. Who can halt in Dendermond, and not bethink him of my Uncle Toby in England, when he took his purse out ot his bureau, and went to befriend Lieutenant Lefevre, who was sick at the inn ? Or who can fancy this dying soldier, casting his last look upon his weeping boy, without taking out his handkerchief to dry his own eyes ? Or who, in fine, can be unmoved, when he sees the poor orphan youth receiving his late father's sword from the hand of his kind benefactor? How forcibly all this speaks to the soul! and 'how beautifully it shows the heart of one, in whose looks, ind voice, and manner superadded, there was something which LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 77 eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him ! ; " Aix-la-Chapelle stands unrivalled in the efficacy of its medicinal waters. I say unrivalled j for although fashion and interest may sxtol the great advantages to be derived from other spas in Germany, I am satisfied that every one of these advantages are to be found at Aix-la-Chapelle ; and that they would be reaped most abundantly, were it not that their salutary effect is neutralised by the dainty cheer, prepared with an unsparing hand, in every hotel of note in this much-frequented town.* Here it is that we see people of dilapidated frame sitting down to a dinner which might vie with Ovid's description of Chaos in its materials, and in the nature of them. ' Frigida pugnabant calidis, humantia siccis, Mollia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus.' " As the partaker of this heterogeneous display of aliment has to pay for admission to it, he considers that he is entitled to value for value ; and under this impression, his jaws belabour his stomach so unmercifully, that all advantage to be derived from the medicinal waters is completely lost; and his constitution gains nothing in the end for the trouble and expense of a visit to Aix-la-Chapelle. Physicians may write what they please, and prescribe any mode they choose ; but until they can compel their patients to be moderate on plain diet, there will be little or nothing effected in the way of a permanent cure. "Nothing can be more charming, in warm and sunny weather, than the rural walks on the wooded hill of Louisberg, just above the town. When you are sitting on the bench at the top near the column, and casting your eye on the surrounding scenery, you will say that, as a whole, there cannot be a finer or a richer sight. The Ardennes appear to great advantage. At my last visit to the Louis- * The people of Aix-la-Chapelle for many previous generations appear to have been attentive to the choiceness of their food. Principal Carstairs was there in 1685, and mentions, among their peculiar customs, "that when there is a very good and fat ox to be slain by a butcher, he is led through the town, decked with flowers, and a pipe playing before him, that the people may see him, and be induced to buy pieces of him." [ED.] 78 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. berg, a pair of ravens came and soared over my head, and exercised their various aerial evolutions for more than an hour, and then winged their flight towards the Ardennes. As I watched their risings and their lowerings, home rushed on my imagination, and I bethought me of the rascally cobbler who desecrated the Sunday morning by robbing the last raven's nest in this vicinity. A willow wren, larger, and of brighter colours than our own, sang sweetly, although the season was far advanced ; and the black redstart was for ever flitting from stone to stone on the ruined walls of the hotel, which had been consumed by fire during the preceding year. "The sun had now descended into the southern world; whilst the winds of autumn drove the falling leaves before them, and showed us that it was time to leave the cloudy atmosphere of Rhenish Prussia. The Rhine too, had but few of its summer beauties left, although we found at Strasburg a warmer sun than what we had expected. Indeed, it was here that old Boreas gave up the pursuit ; for, had it not been that we encountered a keen and cutting wind as we approached the summit of the Splugen, we should have enjoyed, all the way from Strasburg, the genial warmth of a mild and sunny autumn. "At Freyburg, where we passed a couple of days, the climate was truly delicious ; and as the vintage had only just commenced on the day of our arrival there, all was joy, festivity, and mirth. There was a German waiter at the hotel, of extraordinary talent for acquiring languages; he said he had never been in England, nor much amongst Englishmen, but that he had written a description in Eng- lish poetry of their own cathedral. On saying this, he offered me a little pamphlet, containing an excellent engraving of that superb edifice, by way of frontispiece. As I looked over the pages, I found in their contents matter much superior to anything that I could have expected from the pen of a German waiter at an inn. Having com- plimented him on the successful study of a language by no means of easy acquisition even to a native, I paid him the price which he had asked for his work, and I put it in my portmanteau for future inves- tigation ; but it now lies in the wreck of the Pollux at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 79 " I had expected to have a sight of some of our rarer European birds in my passage across the Alps; and. in order to have a better chance of success, I got out of the carriage, and travelled onwards on foot. But I saw none; the earth appeared one huge barren waste, and the heavens produced not a single inhabitant of air to break the dull monotony around us. " Charming is the descent down the southern side of the Alps ; every day brought us a warmer climate with it, and gave us a fore- taste of the delightful temperature to be enjoyed in the delicious ail of an Italian autumn. As we were advancing slowly up a little ascent in the road, my sister-in-law, Miss Helen Edmonstone, who had just been looking out of the window of the carriage, remarked, with a considerable archness of countenance, 'I am sure that we are in Italy now.' Thinking that there was something more than common by the way in which this remark had been uttered, I cast my eye along the road behind us, and there I saw a matronly-looking woman, with her fingers in full chase amid the long black hair of a young damsel, apparently her daughter. * I agree with you, Miss Helen,' said I. 'We are in Italy, there can be no dobut of it; probably in parts of this country combs are not so plentiful as they are with us. They must have been scarce in the time of Horace, for he remarks of Canidia, crines et incomptum caput? " There was nothing in any of the museums which I visited to show that an advancement had been made in the art of preserving specimens for Natural History. In that of Bologna, I saw two male turkeys with a very thick and long tuft of feathers on their heads ; their necks were bare. I was informed that these strange-looking birds were mere varieties of the tribe, and that they had been reared from the egg in the immediate vicinity. "At Florence, my old friend Professor Nesti showed us through the well-stored apartments of the public museum ; we had not seen each other for more than twenty years. As I looked at him, I could perceive that age had traced his brow with furrows; and he, no doubt, must have observed that Time's unerring hand had been employed upon my own for a similar purpose. Professor Nesti first introduced me to the celebrated sculptor Bartolini of Florence. On calling at his studio, after an absence of twenty years, I found him 8o LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. at work on a classic group, which he had composed with great taste, and was finishing in the first style of elaborate sculpture. The group consisted of Andromache in the imploring attitude of utter despair, whilst the unfeeling conquerors of Troy were in the act of throwing her poor boy Astyanax over the battlements. " I was invited to see in Florence a bird, a mouse, and a piece of heart and liver, which by a chemical process (only known to the in- ventor) had become as hard as stone. I had been given to under- stand that I should find the bird and mouse as perfect in their form as when alive ; but upon examination, the anatomy appeared shrunk and injured, the plumage of the bird and the fur of the mouse were wrong at all points, so that I left the room with disappointment in my looks. Probably corrosive sublimate had been the chief agent in causing these substances to become so very hard. " Although I was much on the watch for birds from Florence to Rome, I saw very few indeed j some dozens of coots on the waters, a heron or two rising from the marshes, with here and there a noisy blackbird rushing from the bush on the road-side, and a scanty show of hooded crows passing from tree to tree, were nearly all there was to tell us that animated nature had not entirely abandoned the parts through which we were travelling. " I had a little adventure on the road from Baccano to Rome not worth relating, but which I deem necessary to be introduced here in order that some of my friends in the latter city, and others in England, may not give me credit for an affair which deserves no credit at all. These good friends had got it into their heads that I had reached Rome after walking barefoot for nearly twenty miles, in order to show my respect and reverence for the sacred capital of the Christian world. Would that my motive had been as pure as represented ! The sanctity of the churches, the remains of holy martyrs which enrich them, the relics of canonised saints placed in such confusion throughout them, might well induce a Catholic tra- veller to adopt this easy and simple mode of showing his religious feeling. But, unfortunately, the idea never entered my mind at the time : I had no other motives than those of easy walking and of self-enjoyment The affair which caused the talk took place as follows : LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 8r " We had arrived at Baccano in the evening, and whilst we were at tea, I proposed to our excellent friend Mr Fletcher, who had joined us at Cologne, that we should leave the inn at four the next morning on foot for Rome, and secure lodgings for the ladies, who would follow us in the carriage after a nine o'clock breakfast. Hav- ing been accustomed to go without shoes month after month in the rugged forests of Guiana, I took it for granted that I could do the same on the pavement of his Holiness Pope Gregory the Sixteenth, never once reflecting that some fifteen years had elapsed from the time that I could go barefooted with comfort and impunity ; during the interval, however, the sequel will show that the soles of my feet had undergone a considerable alteration. " We rose at three the morning after, and having put a shoe and a sock or half-stocking into each pocket of my coat, we left the inn at Baccano for Rome just as the hands of our watches pointed to the hour of four. Mr Fletcher having been born in North Britain, ran no risk of injuring his feet by an act of imprudence. The sky was cloudless and the morning frosty, and the planet Venus shone upon us as though she had been a little moon. Whether the ^severity of the frost which was more than commonly keen, or the hardness of the pavement, or perhaps both conjoined, had deprived my feet of sensibility, I had no means of ascertaining ; but this is certain, I went on merrily for several miles without a suspicion of anything being wrong, until we halted to admire more particularly the trans- cendent splendour of the morning planet, and then I saw blood on the pavement; my right foot was bleeding apace, and on turning the sole uppermost, I perceived a piece of jagged flesh hanging by a string. Seeing that there would be no chance of replacing the damaged part with success, I twisted it off, and then took a survey of the foot by the light which the stars afforded. Mr Fletcher, horror-struck at what he saw, proposed immediately that I should sit down by the side of the road, and there wait for the carriage, or take advantage of any vehicle which might come up. Aware that the pain would be excessive so soon as the lacerated parts would become stiff by inaction, I resolved at once to push on to Rome ; wherefore, putting one shoe on the sound foot, which, by the way, had two unbroken blisters on it, I forced the wounded one into the other, and off we F 82 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. started for Rome, which we reached after a very uncomfortable walk. The injured foot had two months' confinement to the sofa before the damage was repaired. It was this unfortunate adventure which gave rise to the story of my walking barefooted into Rome, and which gained me a reputation by no means merited on my part. " When we left the shores of England, we determined to spend two years in Rome, reserving to ourselves the privilege of retiring from it when the unwholesome season would make a longer stay there, neither safe nor any ways agreeable. We set apart this period for a visit to Naples, as it would be a good opportunity to see the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, a prodigy which has given rise, almost time out of mind, to every possible conjecture throughout the whole of civilised Europe. Everything else in the shape of adventures appears to me to be trivial and of no account. I here state, in the most unqualified manner, my firm conviction that the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius is miraculous be- yond the shadow of a doubt. Were I to conceal this my conviction from the public eye I should question the soundness of both my head and heart, and charge my pen with arrant cowardice. Nothing in the whole course of my life has struck me so forcibly as this occurrence. " Rome, immortal Rome, replete with everything that can instruct and please, is the resort of travellers from all parts of the known world. They have so deluged the press with accounts of its economy, its treasures, and antiquities, that there seems nothing left for future tourists whereon to exercise their pens. For my own part, having seen most of the curiosities full twenty years ago, I did not feel much inclined on this occasion to renew my acquaintance with many of them, especially as I found the temperature of the galleries and palaces anything but genial. Still I got a sight of some things which have made a lasting impression on me ; one of these was the titulus which was fixed over the head of our dying Saviour ; a most learned rabbi of our days has proved its authenticity, if any new proof were wanting; for the historical records at the time of its being brought to Rome are so clear and positive that no one who has any faith at all in history can doubt that this identical piece of wood is the same that was used on the cross, when our blessed LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 83 Lord suffered for the sins of the world. The wood itself is syca- more, and the words appear as though they had been cut hastily into it by some sharp-pointed instrument. " I fear the world will rebuke me when I tell it, that instead or ferreting out antiquities and visiting modern schools of sculpture and of painting, I passed a considerable portion of my time in the extensive bird-market of Rome. I must however remark, that the studio of Vallati, the renowned painter of wild boars, had great attractions for me ; and I have now at home, a wild boar done by him in so masterly a style, and finished so exquisitely, that it obtains unqualified approbation from all who inspect it. " The bird-market of Rome is held in the environs of the Rotunda, formerly the Pantheon. Nothing astonished me more than the quantities of birds which were daily exposed for sale during the season ; I could often count above four hundred thrushes and black- birds, and often a hundred robin red-breasts in one quarter of it; with twice as many larks, and other small birds in vast profusion. In the course of one day, seventeen thousand quails have passed the Roman Custom-house ; these pretty vernal and autumnal travellers are taken in nets of prodigious extent on the shores of the Mediter- ranean. In the spring of the year and at the close of summer, cart- loads of ringdoves arrive at the stalls near the Rotunda. At first the venders were shy with me ; but as we got better acquainted, nothing could surpass their civility, and their wishes to impart every information to me ; and when they had procured a fine and rare specimen, they always put it in a drawer apart for me. These bird- men outwardly had the appearance of Italian banditti, but it was all outside and nothing more ; they were good men notwithstanding their uncouth looks, and good Christians too, for I could see them waiting at the door of the church of the Jesuits, by half-past four o'clock on a winter's morning, to be ready for the first mass. " I preserved eighty birds, a porcupine, a badger, some shell-fish, and a dozen land tortoises whilst I was in Rome ; and these escaped the shipwreck by having been forwarded to Leghorn, some time previous to our embarking at Ciyita Vecchia for that port. "Whilst we were viewing the lofty fragment of a wall which towers amid the surrounding ruins of Caracalla's baths, I saw a hole 84 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. in it which is frequented by the large owl of Europe. A fearless adventurer had managed to get a young one out of it the year before, and he had sold it to the gardener at the Colonna palace, who kept it alive in the pleasure-grounds ; and there I paid it a visit generally once a week. Another pair of these noble wanderers of night is said to inhabit the enormous outworks at the top of St Peter's. These birds are very scarce in this part of Italy. " As you enter Rome at the Porta del Popolo a little on your right, is the great slaughter-house, with a fine stream of water run- ning through it. It is probably inferior to none in Italy for an extensive plan, and for judicious arrangements. Here some seven or eight hundred pigs are killed on every Friday during the winter season. Nothing can exceed the dexterity with which they are de- spatched. About thirty of these large and fat black pigs are driven into a commodious pen, followed by three or four men, each with a sharp skewer in his hand, bent at one end, in order that it may be used with advantage. On entering the pen these performers, who put you vastly in mind of assassins, make a rush at the hogs, each seizing one by the leg, amid a general yell of horror on the part of the victims. Whilst the hog and the man are struggling on the ground, the latter, with the rapidity of thought, pushes his skewer betwixt the fore leg and the body, quite into the heart, and there gives it a turn or two. The pig can rise no more, but screams for a minute or so, and then expires. This process is continued till they are all despatched, the brutes sometimes rolling over the butchers, and sometimes the butchers over the brutes, with a yelling enough to stun one's ears. In the meantime, the screams become fainter and fainter, and then all is silence on the death of the last pig. A cart is in attendance ; the carcases are lifted into it, and it proceeds through the street, leaving one or more dead hogs at the doors of the different pork shops. No blood appears outwardly, nor is the internal hemorrhage prejudicial to the meat, for Rome cannot be surpassed in the flavour of her bacon, or in the soundness of her hams. " A day or two after our arrival in the Eternal City, Fathers Glover and Esmonde, of the Professed House of the Society of Jesus, came to see me. We had been school-fellows together, some LIFE OF THE A UTHOR. 85 forty years before, at Stonyhurst in England, and our meeting was joyous in the extreme. Nothing could exceed the disinterested friendship which these two learned and pious disciples of St Ignatius showed to us during our stay in Rome. Father Glover became our spiritual director. The care which he took to form the mind of my little boy, and the kind offices which we were perpetually receiving at his hands, can only be repaid, on our part, by fervent prayers to Heaven that the Almighty may crown the labours of our beloved foster parent, with the invaluable reward of a happy death. When my foot had got well, after a long and tedious confinement, Father Glover introduced me to the present General of the Society of Jesus. He is a native of Holland ; so engaging is his deportment, so mild is the expression of his countenance, and so dignified is his address, that it was impossible not to perceive immediately that I was in the presence of one eminently qualified to be commander-in-chief of the celebrated order, the discerning members of which had unanimously placed him at their head. " I had long looked for the arrival of the day in which the Roman beasts of burden receive a public benediction. Notwithstanding the ridicule thrown upon this annual ceremony by many a thought- less and censorious traveller, I had figured in my own mind a cere- mony holy in itself, and of no small importance to the people at large. " Benediciie omncs bestia et pecora Domino ! " I conceived that the blessing would insure to these poor dumb animals a better treatment at the hands of man than they might otherwise receive ; and the calling upon our kind Creator to give His benediction to a horse, which, by one false step, or an unruly movement, might en- danger the life of its rider, appeared to me an act replete with Christian prudence. I recalled to my mind the incessant and hor- rible curses which our village urchins vent against their hauling horses on the banks of the Barnsley canal. This aqueous line of commerce passes close by my porter's lodges ; and as the first lock is only a short distance from them, the horrid din of curses com- mences there, and is kept up by these young devils incarnate from week to week (Sundays not excepted) with the most perfect im- punity. "At last the day arrived on which the beasts of draught and 86 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. burden were to receive a benediction from the hand of a priest at the door of St. Anthony's church. The sun shone brightly, and the scene was truly exhilarating. Every horse, and mule, and ass, was decked out in splendid colours, and in trappings corresponding with the means of their owners, whose faces bespoke the joy of their hearts, and whose orderly conduct, at once proclaimed the religious feeling which had brought them to the place. When the animals had received the benediction, they passed onwards with their mas- ters, to make room for those behind them ; and this was the order of the day, until the last blessing upon the last animal brought the exhibition to a close. " As this scene of primeval piety was going on, an English gentle- man, with whom I had a slight acquaintance, and who was standing by my side, remarked that he was tired with looking at such a scene of superstitious folly. ' If it be folly,' said I, in answer to his re- mark, ' to give a blessing to an animal in one shape, it is certainly folly to pronounce a benediction upon an animal under another. And still we all do this in England, and in every other Christian country. Where is the well-regulated family which, on sitting down to a leg of boiled mutton and caper sauce, does not beg the blessing of Almighty God upon it, through the mouth of the master of the house, or by the ministry of a clergyman, if present ? " Benedicite, omnia opera Domini, Domino ! " Who ever thinks of cutting up a young roasting-pig, immersed in delicious gravy, and hot from the kitchen, without asking a blessing on it ? " Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts ! " ' " When the returning warmth of summer has filled the upper air in the streets of Rome with multitudes of swifts and house-martins, the idling boys manage to capture these useful visitors by a process at once surprisingly simple and efficacious. They procure a silken line of sufficient length to reach above the eaves of the houses. To one end of this they attach a small curled feather or two, and behind these is formed a running noose. This apparatus is taken up into the air by the current of wind blowing through the street ; and as the poor birds are on the look-out for materials wherewith to line their nests, they strike at the floating feathers, and get their necks into the fatal snare, and are taken to the bird-market at the LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 87 Rotunda for sale. This ornithological amusement is often carried on in the street of the Propaganda during the months of May and June. " After the benediction by the sovereign pontiff from the portico of St. Peter's has given the world to understand that all the cere- monies of holy week are over, the strangers take their departure from Rome with a precipitation as though the pestilence had shown itself within her walls. We, however, determined to prolong our stay, wishing to be present at the services during the month of May, the whole of which delightful time is dedicated to devotions in honour of the blessed Virgin. It is called in Rome, ' the month of Mary ; ' and these devotions are performed in the church of the Jesuits with a magnificence worthy of the occasion. The beautifully arranged blaze of innumerable candles on the high altar ; the hea- venly music j the fervent prayers of the people, and the profound attention of the officiating Fathers, all tended to make a deep and a lasting impression on my mind. " Our prolonged stay gave me an opportunity of collecting speci- mens of those birds of passage so rarely to be seen in our own land, and scarcely ever acquired in a state fit for preparation. We had the golden oriole, the roller, the bee-eater, the spotted gallinule, the least of the water-rails, the African redstart, the hoopoe, the egrette, the shrikes, and several varieties of the quail, and I procured an adult pair of the partridge of the Apennines in superb plumage. " Thus did time glide on, every day producing something new to engage the attention of my indefatigable sisters-in-law, and to give me sufficient occupation in ornithology, so that we felt somewhat low in spirits when the day arrived on which we were to take our departure for Naples. I saw more birds on the route from Rome to Naples than I had observed in the whole of the journey from Eng- land. Kites and common buzzards, sparrow-hawks and windhovers, were ever on the wing in the azure vault above us. " As we were resting our horses at a little inn on the side of the road, I had a fine opportunity of getting close to a very large herd of Italian buffaloes. These wild-looking animals have got a bad name for supposed ferocity, and when I expressed my determination to approach them, I was warned by the Italians not to do so, as 88 LIFE OF THE A UTHOR. the buffaloes were wicked brutes, and would gore me to death. Hav- ing singled out a tree or two of easy ascent where the herd was grazing, I advanced close up to it, calculating that one or other of the trees would be a protection to me, in case the brutes should prove unruly. They all ceased eating, and stared at me as though they had never seen a man before. Upon this, I immediately threw my body, arms, and legs into all kinds of antic movements, grumbling loudly at the same time ; and the whole herd, bulls, cows, and calves, took off, as fast as ever they could pelt, leaving me to return sound and whole to the inn, with a hearty laugh against the Italians. " After I had seen the ram of Apulia in Naples, I no longer con- sidered Homer's story of Ulysses with the sheep of Polyphemus so very much out of the way.* " We took the advantage of a fine steamer for Sicily, but not with any intention of staying there, as our projected return to Rome would merely admit of a transient visit to that renowned island. I had long wished for an opportunity to see Scylla and Charybdis ; the first, so notorious formerly for the howling of her dogs under water, * Scylla rapax canibus, Siculo latrare profundo;' the second, terrible for its hostility to ships, ' Ratibusque inimica Charybdis.' " Stromboli's smoking crater was seen in the distance, as we were advancing to these famous straits. But I was sadly disappointed with their appearance, for they showed nothing of that tremendous agitation so forcibly described by the ancients. I concluded at last, * When Ulysses and his companions had succeeded in extinguishing the eye of the Cyclops, the blind monster stretched his arm across the mouth of the cavern that they might not escape by passing out with his sheep. To elude his precau- tions, Ulysses tied sets of three rams together, and under the middle ram of each set he bound a comrade, who was thus flanked by the outside animals. Ulysses himself was content with a single ram, the biggest of the whole so big, that, hanging beneath its belly, and clasping its neck, with his hands buried in its wool, he escaped detection, although the Cyclops stopped this king of the flock to stroke it affectionately. [ED.] LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. that either the poets had availed themselves of the licence which has always been accorded to those who drink the waters of Helicon, or that these two ferocious whirlpool genii had left their favourite resi- dence, and gone elsewhere. Indeed, I soon found to my cost that they had settled in the passport offices of Sicily, for I was all but worried alive there. The hungry inmates had found a flaw in my Neapolitan passport. It consisted merely of the omission of the word 'return.' This was a windfall for their insatiate cravings; and I had either to administer to their appetites, or to give up all thoughts of leaving the island, as the negligence of the authorities in Naples had subjected me to take out a new passport in Sicily. Thus I had first to pay at one office and then at another ; to wait here, and to expostulute there ; so that, what with the heat of the sun, and the roughness of the pavement, and the payment of fees, I could not have been much worse off had I been sucked into the vortex of the old straits themselves. In a word, there was no helping myself, and no mercy shown, although I cried out most feelingly ' Solvere quassatae parcite membra ratis.' The vexations at the passport offices deduct considerably from the pleasure of a tour through the insular dominions of his Neapolitan majesty. " I can fancy that Sicily must afford a magnificent treat to the votaries of ornithology both early in April and at the close of Sep- tember, as the European birds of passage, in coming to the north, and in retiring from it, are known to pass in great quantities through this island. A person with a good telescope, and in a favourable situation, would have it in his power to mark down the many different species of birds which wing their way to this quarter ; and I can conceive that the family of hawks, especially the Windhover, would be very numerous. " In Sicily we saw an exhibition, the recollection of which haunted me like a spectre for many a week afterwards. It might be termed a melancholy parade of death decked out in a profusion of gay and splendid colours. I could not comprehend by what species of philosophy these islanders had brought themselves to the contem- plation of objects once so dear to them, but now shrunk into hideous 90 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. deformity, and seeming, as it were, to ask for a removal from a situ- ation which ill befits them, and which has robbed the grave of its just and long-acknowledged perquisite. This abhorrent spectacle is no other than that of the dead brought from what ought to be their last resting-place, where the dryness of the climate has preserved their flesh from rotting. They were decked out in magnificent attire; but death had slain their beauty; their god-like form was gone, and the worm had left upon them disgusting traces of its ravages. ' Matres, atque viri, defunctaque corpora vita.' "We saw what once had been fine young ladies, and elderly matrons, and fathers of families, in dresses fit for a convivial dance ; and we might have imagined that they were enjoying an hour of repose till the arrival of the festive time. But when our eyes caught the parts not veiled by the gorgeous raiment, oh, Heavens! there, indeed, appeared death in all his grisly terrors. I had never seen any sight in my life, before this, so incongruous, so mournful, so dismal, and so horrifying. These shrunk and withered remnants of former bloom and beauty, brought to my mind the exhibitions of stuffed monkeys which we see in our own museums, with this differ- ence only, that the monkeys have glass eyes most unnaturally starting from their sockets, whilst the hollow sockets of the Sicilian mummies contain a withered substance, discoloured and deprived of all the loveliness that life had once imparted to it. "The churches in this delicious island surpass even those of Rome in the variety of rare and costly marble ornaments. The horns of the cattle are of surprising length. " We left Sicily under the full impression that we ought to have remained there for three or four months ; but this could not be accom- plished ; so, on our return to Naples, having paid a farewell visit to Virgil's tomb, we left this laughing, noisy, merry city on a fine and sunny morning, to enjoy, for eight or nine months more, the soothing quiet of the Roman capital. To ourselves, as Catholics, a prolonged sojourn in the eternal city was of infinite value. The venerable Cardinal Fransoni had been unremitting in his attentions to us; whilst his pious secretary, il Signore Canonico Natanaele Fucili, LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 91 showed a friendship for us as though our acquaintance had been of very long standing. My little boy was so fond of this amiable gentleman, and so devoted to His Eminence, that he would be in the Propaganda whenever an opportunity offered. " But the church of the Gesu was the chief place of our daily resort. My little boy might be said to have lived in the convent. Its professed fathers and its lay brothers were unbounded in their acts of friendship to him, and in imparting to him instructions the most invaluable and important at his tender time of life. The 1 English angelino/ as these good religious called him, never appeared to such advantage as when engaged in the sacred ceremonies at the church of the Jesuits. The decorum which is punctually observed in this splendid edifice renders it a place of universal resort, whilst the punctuality in the daily performance of divine service is beyond all praise. The doors are opened precisely at five o'clock of every morning in the year, but many masses are said before that hour. " I would often in the morning, whilst waiting for the opening of the church doors, ask some of the good souls assembled there, what it was that made the Jesuits such universal favourites witrrthe people. I invariably received for answer that, although the other religious orders were very good and attentive to them, yet the fervour, and charity, and attendance, of these fathers were carried to a still higher degree j and that, during the cholera, their exertions were beyond all praise, for they were seen in the most infected parts of the city, both day and night, performing acts of charity and piety in every shape imaginable. " Formerly the church of the Jesuits possessed many fine paintings by masters of the first celebrity, but barbarity and injustice deprived the fathers of these inestimable treasures. The cause of their disap- pearance from the corridors of the Gesu does honour to the heart of man. They were sold for the maintenance of the aged Portuguese and Spanish missioners who had been most cruelly deprived of every means of support, and driven into exile, by D'Aranda and Pombal,* * Pombal, the Portuguese Prime Minister, prevailed upon the King to issue an edict, September 3, 1759, confiscating the goods of all the Jesuits in Portugal, and banishing them the kingdom. They were put on board vessels, and were landed in a state of destitution on the shores of Italy. A similar decree was 92 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. the infidel tools of the infidel philosophers, who had it all their own way at that eventful period. " From the time of our return to Rome to that of our departure for Civita Vecchia in June 1841, things went smoothly on, whilst every day was productive of information and contentment. My sisters passed their time as usual, and much of mine own was spent in the bird-market and in its environs, and in preparing the specimens which I had procured. I obtained a fine gobbo, or white-headed duck, the only one in the market during the two seasons of my stay in Rome. I also got a very handsome red-crested duck with a red beak, equally as scarce. The large bat, 4 altivolans/ is abundant in Rome. You may see it issuing from the lofty edifices at sunset, and proceeding with surprising velocity to its favourite haunts afar off. The Roman lizard is beautiful in form and colour. After dissection, which is very difficult and tedious at the tail, I could restore its anatomy perfectly ; but the brilliant green and yellow colours of its body soon began to fade, and at last they totally disappeared, the specimen gradually assuming a tint composed of grey and blue. The fresh-water tortoise, with a tail considerably longer than that of the one which lives on land, is well worth the trouble of dissection. The Museum of Natural History, at the Sapienza in Rome, is a discredit to the name of the establishment, and I could see nothing in the department of zoology worthy of the least attention. " Rome is certainly the most quiet city I ever visited. That foul play and stiletto experiments do occasionally occur, is probable enough, when we consider the extent of the city, and the vast influx of strangers from all parts of the world. Still I witnessed no desperate acts of violence. Yet, methinks, I must have seen some, and perhaps have felt them too, had they been of ordinary occur- rence, for I had occasion to be in the streets every morning a little after four o'clock. Sometimes a houseless dog, which had secured its night's lodgings in the open air, would snarl at me ; but, on my pretending to take up a stone, it fled immediately. I saw nothing in the shape of man to cause suspicion, either when the moon issued by Charles III. of Spain, in March, 1767, at the instigation of Count D'Aranda, President of Castille, when the Jesuits of Spain and her colonies, were transferred in a body to Italy, and chiefly to the States of the Pope. [Eo.] LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 93 shone brightly, or when her light was partially supplied by the flickerings of the distant lamp. But I had often occasion to ob- serve both men and women, kneeling in fervent prayer at the little oratories so common in the streets, especially at that of the ' Madonna del Archetto,' so well known in the year 1796, and so incessantly resorted to since that interesting period. " I was not aware until chance put me up to it, how careful the Roman Government is in providing for the spiritual wants of the soul. Having mistaken the hour of rising, I was in the street at half-past three in the morning ; and seeing a man with a gun in his hand, and a couple of dogs by his side, I pushed up, in order to have a word or two with him. On my remarking that it was some- what early to go in quest of game, he replied that his chase lay a good way off; and that he had just come from the three o'clock mass, which is always said at that hour for the accommodation of those who indulge in the sports of the field. " He who has leisure on hand to examine into the nature of religious establishments, cannot help being convinced of their utility. In Rome it is at once apparent. There, no man ever, nee^i com- plain of the want of a meal, for he is sure to find it at the charitable convent door, where, every day in the year, food is distributed to all who come for it. An English gentleman, who had resided fifteen years in Rome, once told me that he had never known a single instance of any person dying through want. It would be wrong in me to withhold this small tribute of praise due to the monasteries, as I am thoroughly convinced of their great benefit to all ranks of people. The time of the inmates is spent either in salutary advice at the confessional, or in offering up prayers for the nation, or in attending at stated hours to the wants of the poor and distressed. The good monks may be seen taking the fresh air in the evening, for the preservation of their health, in some favourite quarter of the town, but they all retire to the convent before it is dark ; the ' Ave Maria,' or short form of prayer to implore the intercession of the blessed Virgin for the welfare of the city, announcing that the time of returning within their enclosures has already arrived. " Cervantes has told us that there is nothing certain in this life ; 'No hay cosa segura en esta vida:' and that, where you least 94 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. expect it, up jumps the hare ; * Adonde menos se piensa, se levanta la liebre.' All this we found to be very true, after our departure from Rome in order to reach England before the close of summer. I had been above a year and a half in Southern Italy with my sisters-in-law Miss Edmonstone and Miss Helen Edmonstone, and my son Edmund, a youth of eleven years of age. We left Rome with our two servants on the i6th of June 1841 ; and the next day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, we went on board the Pollux steamer, of two hundred horse-power, at Civita Vecchia, and shaped our course for Leghorn. The weather was charmingly serene : scarcely a ripple could be perceived upon old ocean's surface ; and when the night set in, although there was no moon, the brilliancy of the stars made ample amends for her non-appearance. I soon remarked a want of nautical discipline on board the Pollux ; and ere the sun went down, I had observed to a gentleman standing by me, that in all my life I had never been on board of a vessel where un- seaman-like conduct was more apparent. After making choice of a convenient part of the deck, I laid me down in my travelling cloak to pass the night there, having Mr Macintosh's life-preserver in my pocket. He had made me a present of this preserver some twenty years ago, and I have never gone to sea without it. Contrary to their usual custom, my sisters preferred to sleep that night on deck on account of the serenity of the weather ; and as our two servants followed their example, none of our party went below, for my son Edmund had already chosen his spot of retirement near to the place where I was reposing. We had the great awning above us. It had been left expanded apparently more through neglect than with an intention to accommodate the passengers. Suddenly, our sleep was broken by a tremendous crash, which at first I took to be the burst- ing of the boiler. But I was soon undeceived; for, on looking around, 1 saw a huge steamer aboard of us, nearly amid-ships. It proved to be the Monjibello, of 240-horse power, from Leghorn to Civita Vecchia. She had come into us a little abaft the paddle- wheels, with such force that her cutwater had actually penetrated into our after-cabin. In all probability she would have cut us in two, had not her bowsprit fortunately come in contact with out funnel, which was smashed in pieces, and driven overboard by the LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 95 shock. The Pollux instantly became a wreck, with her parts amid- ships stove in ; and it was evident that she had but a very little time to float. I foand my family all around me ; and having slipped on and inflated my life-preserver, I entreated them to be cool and temperate, and they all obeyed me most implicitly. My little boy had gone down on his knees, and was praying fervently to the blessed Virgin to take us under her protection, whilst Miss Edmon- stone kept crying out in a tone of deep anxiety, " Oh, save the poor boy, and never mind me ! " Sad and woeful was the scene around us. The rush to get into the Monnbetto, which, thanks to Charles Bona- parte (Prince Canino),was still alongside of us, caused unutterable con- fusion. Some were pulled up on deck by the passengers and crew of the Monjibello ; others managed to get on board of her without help ; and others ran to and fro, bereft of all self-command ; whilst our damaged vessel herself was sinking deeper and deeper every minute into her watery grave. Confiding in my valuable life-preserver, I re- mained on board the Pollux till nearly all had left her. I had managed to keep possession of my favourite travelling-cloak, and should have saved it ultimately, but for the following misadventure. A~fme young German woman, with a child under her arm, and apparently terrified out of her senses, seized fast hold of me by her hand that was free, just as I was in the act of trying to get into the Monjibello. Her con- vulsive grasp held me so completely fast, that I could neither advance nor retreat. I begged of her in French for the love of God to let go her hold, as we should both of us inevitably perish. But she was unconscious of what I said ; and with her mouth half open, and with her eyes fixed steadfastly on me, she continued to grasp me close under the ribs, with fearful desperation. I now abandoned my cloak to its fate, and then having both hands free, I succeeded in tearing myself from her grasp, and got up the side of the Monjibello by means of a rope which was hanging there. " We were all saved except one man. He was a respectable ship- captain from Naples, and was on his way to Leghorn, in order to purchase a vessel. In talking over his death the morning after, it was surmised that he had all his money in gold sewed up in a belt around his body, a thing common in these countries ; and to this might be attributed his untimely end, for I heard one of the Monji* 96 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. lello sailors say, that he had got hold of the captain's hand after he had fallen into the sea, but that the weight was too much for him; and so the poor captain sank to the bottom and perished there. " Mr Frederick Massey, first engineer on board of the Pollux, per- formed an act of courage which ought to be made known to the public. He had effected his escape from the sinking vessel into the Monjibello, but reflecting that the boiler of the former might explode and cause additional horrors, he went back to her, and eased the safety-valve, at the time when the engine-room was filling fast with water. Having performed this eminent service, the gallant fellow got safely back again on board the Monjibello. " The two steamers were now at a short distance from each other. I kept a steadfast eye on the shattered Pollux, knowing that her final catastrophe must be close at hand. She went down stern fore- most, but she hesitated a while in the act of sinking, as though un- willing to disappear for ever. This momentary and unexpected pause gave us some hopes that she might remain waterlogged ; and I said to a gentleman standing by me, I do not despair of seeing her at to-morrow's dawn. But she tarried only for a few minutes. Her forepart then appeared to rise up perpendicularly. She sank gradu- ally lower and lower. We saw her last light extinguished in the water ; and then all was still, for there was no wind in the heavens \ and so easy was her descent into the ' chambers of the deep,' that it caused no apparent temporary whirlpool on the place which she had just occupied. Thus foundered the Pollux steamer, with all her goods and property on board. Not a spar, not a plank, not a rem- nant of anything was left behind her. Many were of opinion that she floated not more than ten minutes from the time that she received her deathblow ; others again conjectured that she remained a short half hour : probably, some sixteen or eighteen minutes will not be far from the mark. All our hopes of safety now depended upon the Monjibello. But the worst was apprehended, knowing that she her- self must have received a tremendous shock at the time that she ran the Pollux on board. The general perturbation was much increased by a sudden report that the Monjibello was actually sinking, and a demand was immediately made by the passengers to be put on shore at the nearest point of land. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 97 " Prince Canino (Charles Bonaparte) had come passenger in the Monjibello from Leghorn ; and his exertions to save us were beyond all praise. The fatal collision had taken place some five miles from the Island of Elba. The prince immediately offered his services to go to Portolongoni, in order to obtain permission for us to land there. Indeed, under Heaven, we already owed our lives to Prince Canino, for when the Moniibello had backed out from the wreck of the Pollux, and was in the act of sheering off from alongside of us, he, with the characteristic judgment of his uncle Napoleon in the hour of need, ran to the helm, and, knocking the steersman aside, took hold of it himself, and placed the Monjibello in a situation to enable us to pass on board of her from the sinking Pollux. Had the prince not done this, the loss of life would have been terrible, for we had been deprived of our boat, three people having made off with it to save their own lives, at the time when all was in confu- sion. " The prince haVing reached Portolongoni in one of the Monji- bello 's boats, he begged permission of the officer in command that he might be allowed to land. But all his entreaties were of no avail. Nothing could mollify the man's iron heart. He peremptorily refused the favour which the prince had asked, adding, by way of excuse for his diabolical conduct, that he was bound to obey the law, which did not allow of our landing under existing circumstances. Finding all remonstrance of no avail, and seeing that the heart of this savage was too obdurate to be worked upon by any further recital of the horrors of our situation, Prince Canino left Portolongoni in disgust, and returned to the Monjibello, where he announced to us, in terms of high indignation, the utter failure of his mission. " We lay-to during the remainder of the night, got up our steam at early dawn, and reached the port of Leghorn, where we came to an anchor. Here, again, Prince Canino was a real benefactor to us. The wise men of Leghorn met in consultation, and gravely decreed that we must perform a quarantine of twenty days, because we had no bill of health to show. Now, these Solons knew full well that the Monjibello had left their own harbour, in due form, only the evening before ; and they were told that the people whom the Monjibello had received on board, had equally left Civita Vecchia in due form ; but G 98 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. that these people could not possibly produce a bill of health, because that bill of health was unfortunately at the bottom of the sea in the foundered Pollux. Still the collected wisdom of Leghorn insisted on the performance of quarantine. The law ordained it, and the dead letter of the law was to be their only guide. Prince Canino pleaded our cause with uncommon fervour. He informed them that we had had nothing to eat that morning, as the Monjibello had only taken provisions on board to last till she reached Civita Vecchia. He described the absolute state of nudity to which many of the suf- ferers had been reduced, he urged the total loss of our property, and he described in feeling terms the bruises and wounds which had been received at the collision. In fine, he entreated his auditors to ac- company him alongside of the Monjibello, where they would see with their own eyes the sufferings which he had just described. " quid facundia posset, Re patuit.' " The council of Leghorn relented, and graciously allowed us to go ashore, after we had been kept for above two hours in suspense as to our destiny. We landed, in appearance something like Falstaff's regiment. My ladies had lost their bonnets, and I my hat. Others- were without stockings, coats, and shoes. I saw two worthy priests standing on the deck of the Monjibello with only one shoe each. I recommended them to cast lots for a shoe, so that one of them at least might walk comfortably up the uneven streets of Leghorn. They smiled as I said this, and no doubt they thought my levity out of season. " A survey was immediately made on the Monjibello, and on find- ing that she had not suffered materially during the concussion, she was pronounced to be sea-worthy. Having lost our all, we deter- mined to return to Rome in the same vessel which had run us down. Wherefore, after thanking Mrs M'Bean and her two excellent sons for their attention to us during the day which we had spent in Leg- horn, we went once more on board the Monjibello, repassed over the place where the Pollux had sank for ever, and landed at Civita Vecchia, whence we posted it to Rome. " At the Roman custom-house they knew how to feel for those in LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 99 distress. We had purchased in Leghorn all the materials necessary to replace our lost wardrobe these were liable to a heavy duty in the Roman States, but the officers of the customs let every article pass duty free, remarking at the same time, that our forlorn situation demanded all the assistance in their power. Neither would the Roman police make any charge for the renewal of our ' carta di sicurazza ; ' and on our leaving Rome for England a second time, nothing was demanded by any of the different consuls for signing our passport ; imitating in this, the disinterestedness of Mr Barton, the British consul at Civita Vecchia, who refused to take his fee, and was unwearied in his attention to us the day after our disaster. But, I must add, that when I went to the English consul of Leghorn for a new passport, he charged the full price for it, verifying the old saying, * Queer enda pecunia primum est.' " And now a word or two more on the dismal scenes which took place at the collision, and after our vessel had foundered. In the hour of danger several of the crew of the Pollux abandoned us to our fate, and saved themselves by getting into the other vessel. Our brave captain and his mate, in lieu of keeping alternate watch on deck, were both fast asleep in their berths below, when the Monjibello ran on board of us. The captain was so scared, that he forgot to put on his trousers, and his shirt was his only covering when he reached the Monjibello. At the very time that our boat would have been of the utmost service to us, I have already men- tioned that three persons got into it, and rowed away for the land. A gentleman, by name Armstrong, had a narrow escape. He was struck and knocked down by the Monjibello as she entered us ; and he was kept where he fell, by the falling fragments. He was sadly wounded, and he only just extricated himself in time to save his life. A Spanish duchess, who was sleeping below at the time of the accident, lost her senses completely. She persisted in remaining in bed, and no entreaties could move her to leave it. She was dragged upon deck by main force, and taken into the Monjibello with nothing but her shift on. She had not re-gained her self-possession on the following day, for she hesitated at the door of the hotel in Leghorn, and would not pass the threshold until her attendants had shown her that it would not give way under her feet, roo LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. " After we had got safe into the Monjibello, and the terror had somewhat abated, I went down into one of her cabins to see how things were going on. At the farthest corner of it, I saw, by the light of a lamp, a venerable-looking priest dripping wet, and ap- parently in much pain. He informed me, that he had fallen into the sea, and he believed that he had broken his arm, for that his sufferings were almost intolerable. I ripped up his coat with my penknife, and found his shoulder dislocated. With the help of three young English engineers, I replaced the bone in its socket, and then took off his wet clothes, and gave them in charge to my servant, that he might dry them in the following morning's sun. A good Samaritan, who was standing by, furnished a shirt for him. Having made him as comfortable as circumstances would permit, I got him some water to drink, and promised that I would be with him every now and then to see that all was right. The people took me for a surgeon, and they requested that I would bleed the captain of the late Pollux, for that he was apparently in a dying state. This dastardly sansculotte was on the floor in horrible despair, sighing, sobbing, and "heaving like a broken- winded horse. Having felt his pulse, I recommended that he should be taken on deck, and drenched well with sea-water, adding that this would be a much safer process than drawing his precious blood j and that a mouthful or two of salt water, with a little fresh air, would tend to collect his scattered senses. "The whole blame of this shipwreck must be thrown on the captains and the mates of the respective vessels. All four of these worthless seamen were fast asleep at the time of the accident, in lieu of attending to their duty. Hence the total loss of the beauti- ful steamer Pollux, at the very time when the absence of everything that could retard her progress, or cause alarm for her safety, made us sure of a prosperous passage to Leghorn. Our own individual losses were heavy. The costly wardrobe of my sisters, the objects of art which had been purchased in Rome, our books, our writings, our money, our Palmerston passport, and our letter of credit, all went to the bottom with the foundered steamer. Miss Helen Edmonstone lost an ivory crucifix of rare value. It had been sculptured by some first-rate artist of the i5th century, and its loss LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 101 can never be replaced. My little boy was deprived of a relic of great estimation. It consisted of a corpo santo from the catacombs, and was expected to be placed in our chapel. He had received it as a present from the hands of the learned and virtuous Cardinal Fransoni. " In most towns of Italy, a book lies on the table of the hotel, for travellers to enter their names, and in it they sometimes pen down a remark or two. In passing through the town of Novi, on our return to England, a book of this description was presented to me by the waiter. After entering our names, I gave the following brief account of our recent disaster : " ' The Pollux, once so fine, No longer cleaves the wave, For now she lies supine, Deep in her wat'ry grave. " When she received her blow, The captain and his mate Were both asleep below, Snoring in breechless state.* " If I the power possess'd, I 'd hang them by the neck, As warning to the rest, How they desert the deck. " Our treasures, and our clothes, With all we had, were lost. The shock that caused our woes Took place on Elba's coast.' " Cervantes, who had studied the rise and fall of human affairs in all their different bearings, exclaims on one occasion, ' Thou art welcome, Evil, if thou comest alone.' Had my disasters ended with the shipwreck, all would have soon gone right again ; for the sooth- ing hand oi time seldom or ever fails to pour balm into the wounds which we are exposed to receive. But it pleased Almighty God not to stay the chastising rod, so justly due to me, for my many trans- gressions against His divine law. A fever attacked me, and * These two stanzas are a parody on a portion of Cowper's exquisite lines on the Loss of the Royal George. [ED.] 102 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. although it yielded to strength of constitution, it seemed to have sown the seed of future ailment ; for in a few days after its dis- appearance a thirst came on, as intense as any I had experienced on the other side of the tropic. This was an awful warning. A dysentery at last made its appearance, and it harassed me cruelly all the way through Italy and the intervening countries to Ostend, at which port I embarked for London, and thence took steam to Walton Hall. " I have little or nothing more to add by way of memoir, except that the severe attacks of dysentery, and the former indispositions caused by remaining in unwholesome climates, and by exposure to the weather, seem to have made no inroad into my constitution ; for, although life's index points at sixty-two, I am a stranger to all sexagenarian disabilities, and can mount to the top of a tree with my wonted steadiness and pleasure. As I am confident that I owe this vigorous state of frame to a total abstinence from all strong liquors, I would fain say a parting word or two to my young reader on this important subject. " If he is determined to walk through life's chequered path with ease to himself, and with satisfaction to those who take an interest in his welfare, he will have every chance in his favour, provided he makes a firm resolution never once to run the risk of losing his reason through an act of intemperance : for the preservation of his reason will always insure to him the fulfilment of his resolution, and his resolution will seldom fail to crown his efforts with success. The position of an irrational ass, cropping thistles on the village common, is infinitely more enviable than that of a rational man under the influence of excessive drinking. Instinct teaches the first to avoid the place of danger, whilst intemperance drives the last headlong into the midst of it. To me there is no sight in civilised society more horribly disgusting than that of a human being in a state of intoxication. The good Jesuit who, six and forty years ago, advised me never to allow strong liquors to approach my lips, conferred a greater benefit on me than if he had put the mines of Potosi at my immediate disposal. I might fill a large volume with the account of miseries and deaths which I could distinctly trace to the pernicious practice of inebriety. I have seen manly strength, and female LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 103 beauty, and old age itself, in ruins under the fatal pressure of this degrading vice. The knave thrives on the follies of the drunkard, and whole families may trace the commencement of their decay to the dire allurements of the public-house. Father Matthew has done more for Great Britain by his divine suit of Sobriety versus Sot, than all her parliaments and potentates put together, from the days of old Harry down to the present time. "And now a parting word on Natural History. An extensive preserve for every kind of British bird which may choose to take advantage of it, has afforded me excellent opportunities of making ornithological notes with tolerable exactness, and the observations of former years have occasionally been corrected by others in after- times. Still I recommend that what I have given to the public on the nature of our birds should be received with a certain degree of reservation, as their habits are apt to vary in proportion as location varies. Thus, the windhover, or kestril, at this place, abstains from killing birds during its abode amongst us ; but, after it has left us on the approach of autumn, it is known to feed upon them. during the winter months, as Mr Bury has satisfactorily proved. The sea-gulls, which not unfrequently resort to this inland sheet of water, pass the whole of their time in procuring fish ; but I have seen the same species, on our eastern coast, following the farmer's plough, like rooks, in quest of worms. Mr Wighton's squirrels will consume carnal food when in confinement, whilst mine, in liberty, are never known to touch it ; and, in Scotland, Sir William Jardine's barn-owl is known to hoot ; but here, in Yorkshire, this species of owl can do no such thing. I myself can eat boiled snails in Southern Italy, but I am not quite certain that I would dine on them at Walton Hall, with a sirloin of roast beef on the table before me. At sea, too, I have eagerly consumed decayed biscuit, the very sight of which would be abhorrent to my eyes on the shelves of a baker's shop. In a word, who knows but that the Hanoverian rat, which is so voracious in this appetite-creating climate of England, might be more moderate in the country from which it originally came, were it happily endowed with qualities wherewith to perform a periodical migration across the water. "I have now been fully thirty years in striving to improve the 104 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. defective mode of preserving specimens for museums. The method which I have invented (as I have observed elsewhere) cannot be attained through the medium of instructions committed to paper. Nothing, indeed, short of personal demonstration on my part, in a process of three weeks' duration, will suffice ; but, as there is no pro- bability that I shall enter into such a course, I foresee that this novel method will sink down into oblivion with him who has produced it. " But it is time to say farewell, and to bid adieu to Natural History, as far as the press is concerned. I trust that the account of my adventures will not disedify the reader, nor cause a frown upon his face, which it has been my ardent endeavour to brighten up with merriment. In casting my mind's eye over the two and sixty years of my existence, the time appears like the falling of a leaf in autumn, a mere 'sunbeam on a winter's day, a passing cloud in a tempestuous sky,' sure monitors to put us in mind, ' that we are here now and gone in a moment ! ' I dannot divest myself of fear, when I consider how little I have done hitherto, and how much I might have done in preparation for that eventful day, when ' Mors stupebit et Natura, Cum resurget Creatura, Judicanti responsura ; ' that truly awful day, in which a cup of cold water, given to the thirsty, in the name of our dear Redeemer, will be of infinitely more value to us than all our multifarious labours to please a captious and seductive world. ' Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.' " With these lines Waterton concluded the second instalment of his autobiography. Thirteen years afterwards he resumed the chronicle, and wrote in 1857 the final portion which follows : " On the 26th of May 1844, in the last page but one of my Auto- biography, continued in the second volume of the ' Essays on Natural History,' I bade farewell to the reader, and to that delightful pursuit at the same time, so far as the public press was concerned. The fact is, I saw, not without some faint inward feelings of regret, that LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. lex? my once eastern sun, was inevitably approaching to its western re- pose ; that future adventures would, of course, be scarce ; and that mere common occurrences, incidental to retirement from a busy world, would have little in them either to amuse or to instruct the reader of them, whoever he might be. Under this impression I thought, how happy I should be, in this sequestered valley, where nature smiled, and all was gay around me. Here the pretty warblers from the south, when Spring had called them back, would charm me with their sylvan music ; and when the chilling blasts of Autumn warned them to return to their own sunny regions in Africa, their loss would be replaced by congregated ducks and geese, and even by Cormorants, to change the scenery, and still bring joy. Vain castles in the air ! devoid of all reality ! delusive as the quagmire's treacherous surface. My roving spirit, ever on the watch for new adventures, disdained a life so tame and unimportant. Even the Roman poet's warning line of l Onavis referent in mare te novifludus] had no effect upon me. So, having formed a plan of the campaign with rny two dear sisters-in-law, Miss Edmonstone and Miss Helen Edmonstone, I bade adieu to these regions of the North, and we turned our faces once more to those of the smiling South. "We wended our way through fertile lands, and magnificent scenery, till we arrived at the hill-surrounded town of Botzen. On leaving Botzen, we shaped our course for Trent, Trent, so well- known in ecclesiastical history. The road is nearly level, and winds along the base of lofty mountains ; whilst the intervening land has the appearance of a continuous vineyard. Recent rains had much im- paired it in many places, and had forced down gravel and huge pieces of rock into the cultivated plain, causing lamentable spoliation. Men were standing ready, by order of the Austrian Government, to assist arriving carriages ; but they refused our offer to remunerate them for their labour ! " I only saw one solitary crow, and a small flock of finches, throughout the whole of this day : birds, indeed, seem to be for- bidden all protection in this portion of our earthly paradise, which, as far as ornithology is concerned, may be compared to Ovid's memorable description of Famine. " The railway to Venice is supported by such a length of arches, io6 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. that it fairly astounds the beholder. There must be good doings at the Hotel d'Europe in this ancient city ; for we had scarcely got into it, when I spied a sleek and well-fed Hanoverian rat, basking in a sunny nook. It looked at us with the most perfect indifference, as much as to say, ' I have capital pickings here, both for myself and my relatives.' How well this plodding animal contrives to fatten both in a cold climate and in a warm one ! Although so late in the season, we could perceive numerous bats over our heads as we were sitting in the gondola. Woodcocks were lying at the shop windows in great abundance. " If you chance to be near the Church of St Mark just at the time of ' Ave Maria/ when the people of Venice stand in the street with their hats off, and say a short prayer of thanksgiving for the blessings received during the day, you will see a man with a light in each hand before a statue of the Blessed Virgin. Popular tradition concerning it is, that a murder had been committed in one of the streets. After the assassin had effected his deed of blood, he took to his heels, and thus escaped detection ; but he dropped the bloody knife, near where the body of his victim lay. On the following morning, a poor shoe- maker, at an early hour, had left his house to take his usual walk ; and most unfortunately for himself, he had an empty knife-case in his pocket. On his being taken up by the police, and his person searched, this case was found to fit exactly the fatal knife ; and upon this demonstrative evidence, the shoemaker was executed. At a later period, the real murderer was taken up, and confessed his crime. The Republic of Venice then ordered, that two torches should always be lighted at the hour of Ave Maria, in commemoration of the innocent shoemaker's fate ; and to this day, his soul is remembered in the prayers of the citizens. " At Venice, the kind Jesuit Fathers gave us a letter of introduction to those of Loretto. Pigeons in the city of Venice are remarkably numerous. They retire to roost, and also make their nests in the facades of the churches, and behind the ornamental statues of the saints, and in the holes of the walls where scaffolding is used. These pigeons are uncommonly tame, and I question if they have any owners. Cats and dogs being scarce in Venice, may be one cause of a plenitude of pigeons. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 107 " I am very averse to Italian cooking in general. We had a dish one day, which, by its appearance and the sliminess of its sauce, I took to be a compound of cat arid snail. When I shrugged up my shoulders at it, and refused to take it on my plate, as the waiter pre- sented it to me, I could perceive by the expression of his face, that the scoundrel pitied my want of taste. " At the town of Monsilice, there was nothing in the way of Natural History. On our way there, I observed a fair sprinkling of carrion crows, but nothing more. " The morning on which we left Monsilice for Bologna was dark and gloomy, but towards noon the sun broke out in all his glory. Butterflies and wasps were on the wing, even though we were in the month of November and I could perceive cats sunning themselves at the windows of the houses on the side of the road. Finches and sparrows were not uncommon, but not a crow, nor a daw, nor a mag- pie could be observed. Plenty of more than usually large turkeys, evidently of this year's breed, were in great abundance ; and very numerous also were dunghill fowls in the adjacent fields, and at the barn-doors of the farm houses. Dogs, upon the whole, seemed scarce, teal and widgeons in abundance. " Whilst in this city, the Marquis Fransoni, eldest brother of the Cardinal, gave us an introduction to the Church, where, in an ad- joining apartment, is kept the incorrupt body of St Catharine of Bologna. We saw it, and we had the finest opportunity of examin- ing it with great attention. " At Rimini, now celebrated for its miraculous picture of the Blessed Virgin, we could see the larger and the smaller species of bats, on wing, as the night set in. Here, again, large turkeys and common fowls were most numerous. The horses are no great things, but there are potent mules and asses. Some of the carts cut a droll appearance, 'by having three beasts abreast, closely allied to each other, but not forming one distinct family. Thus, you would see a horse harnessed on one side, and an ass on the other, whilst the middle place was occupied by the mule, their strong and stubborn half-brother. The oxen are nearly all one colour. They are docile, large and beautiful. Animals, ' sine fraude dolisque.' Huge fat red pigs, some of them with white faces, might be seen, well packed in io8 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. curiously-formed carts. Judging by their plump appearance, and likewise by this particular kind of conveyance, I suspected that this was their last journey, and the last day they had to live. "At Casa Brusciate our journey had well-nigh terminated sadly to our cost. One horse fell down whilst going at a gallop ; and in an instant, both itself and the off leader were on their backs in the ditch alongside of the road. How it happened that they did not drag the carriage after them, I cannot comprehend. The fore- wheel sank deep in the soft earth, which partially gave way under the weight. Had the carriage moved a trifle more, nothing rould have prevented a total smash. Although exposed to imminent danger, my sisters behaved nobly. Not a shriek, not a sigh escaped from their mouths ; and when we had managed to get them out of the carriage, they retired to a safe distance from it, with wonderful composure, and silently awaited the termination. But on many other occasions when danger has been apprehended, their self-com- mand has been worthy of all admiration. In the meantime, the prostrate leader kept striking out at intervals, till at last his foot got jammed in the spokes of the fore wheel. Our position was bad indeed. Every moment I expected that the fettered leg of the horse would be broken. However, by dint of exertion, and help from people on the road, we got the leg released and the horses on their feet again, so that we were enabled to reach Ancona. " Although the Adriatic had been in view for the best part of the day, we saw not a single gull of any species. But there were abund- ance of larks and finches on the sea-shore ; and Miss Helen pointed out some scamps going after them with a gun. One vagabond had a Civetta owl at the top of a long pole a common practice here, to decoy the poor birds to their destruction. Whilst I was condemning it, our attention was drawn to an amusing young hero, who was wrestling most manfully with a jet black half-grown pig. He got the better of it, seized both its hind legs, and then forced it to walk on, as a biped ; putting us in mind of a man with a wheel-barrow. At last he jerked it into a large hole full of water and washed it well himself laughing immoderately, and seemingly proud of the adven- ture. Cats were plentiful ; taking the sun, as they sat on the roofs of the houses. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 109 " Loretto stands upon a mountain of vineyards, surrounded by other high mountains, also cultivated for the grape. The celebrated Church of Our Lady is most magnificent : whilst the Santa Casa within it surpasses all attempt at description. The inside of the Santa Casa's walls are in their pristine state; but those outside are entirely covered with sculptured marble, chiselled by the first artists of the times. That Supreme Being, who can raise us all at the last day, could surely order the Santa Casa, which was inhabited by the Blessed Virgin, when she lived in Nazareth, to be transported from Judea to the place where it now stands, if such were His will and pleasure. There are authentic proofs of its miraculous transition ; but the belief of it is optional with every Catholic, as the Church has pronounced nothing on the subject. Millions upon millions of pil- grims have already visited it, and millions in times to come will, no doubt, follow their example. I believe in the miracle. " The road onwards, from Loretto to Rome, offered us very scanty gleanings in ornithology. All that we saw was a few finches and carrion crows. The pigs here are mostly black, and stand high on their legs ; but not quite so high as those of Belgium. The mules and asses seemed to be well taken care of, and the oxen are beauti- ful. Although the day was deliciously warm, and although I cast my eyes upon every sunny bank which presented itself, still I could not observe a single lizard. These pretty little children of summer were all in their winter's sleep, safe and secure from harm. But now ornithology was certainly on the mending hand. Large flocks of finches flitted on before us, whilst jays and magpies assured us, by their harsh notes and their chatterings, that they were safe from the poison and exterminating guns of such fell destroyers as our English game- keepers. Still, this unexpected treat in animated nature could only be considered as accidental at the best ; for from Calais to Rome, the traveller may pronounce the country, on each side of the highway, little better than a barren wilderness, so far as regards living wild animals. It is clear, then, that the traveller, journeying on from town to town in continental districts, will be sadly disappointed if he ex- pects to find even a very moderate show of birds in the surrounding country. But, that birds do frequent these regions in vast abund- ance is beyond all doubt, by the ample supply to be found in every I io LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. town during the season ; especially in Rome, where the daily con- sumption and supply almost surpass belief. I have known seventeen thousand quails brought to the eternal city in the course of one morning. " Here I will close the scene, and return home. I have had an adventure or two of very singular import, and I could wish to unfold them to the eye of the curious reader, ere I bid him adieu for ever. " It has been aptly remarked by writers, that death will often spare his victim when far from home, and slay him at last, close to his own fireside. Thus fell poor Bruce, whom Abyssinian toils could not subdue. Death, without a moment's warning, struck him down at the foot of his own staircase. Sancho Panza was justly of opinion, that there is nothing secure in this life. A few years ago the jubilee, which takes place once in every fifty years, was to be celebrated in the city of Bruges, and the Holy Blood of our Redeemer was to be carried in procession with vast magnificence through the streets. My two sisters had already set off before me, and I was to follow them in the course of a few days ; urgent business keeping me at home. So, in due time, I left Yorkshire for London, and thence for Dover by the night train. The night was as dark as pitch, for there was neither moon nor stars j all above being one dense cloud. On my leaving the station to go on board the Belgian steamer. I threw my Italian cloak over my shoulders, and with a little portmanteau in one hand, and an umbrella in the other, I inquired for the porter. But he had just been engaged that very . moment by two gentlemen, who were on their way that night to Calais ; so I thought that I could not do better than keep them company. The porter asked to carry my portmanteau ; but as he had already enough of weight upon his shoulders, I answered that I would carry the little portmanteau myself. The Belgian boat was moored a trifle ahead of the French steamer, and she burnt a blue light. This he pointed out to me. ' You have only, sir,' said he, ' to cross the little bridge close by here, and you will be on board the Belgian steamer immediately.' I thanked him, and we parted company. Following his instructions, I passed the wooden bridge ; and when I supposed myself at the temporary gangway leading to the vessel not being able to distinguish land from water, on account LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. rrr of the darkness, oh, horrible mistake ! I was, in fact, on the very confine of the basin, and at the next step I sank overhead in the water, after having dropped down some fifteen feet. Death now stared me in the face. Here, I ought to remark, I wore the mira- culous medal of the Blessed Virgin, so well known throughout all France j and I had daily begged this ' Consolatrix Afflictorum ' that she would obtain for me, from our dear Redeemer, the favour that I might not die a sudden and unprovided death. At the first plunge into the water, I heard a voice exclaim from the vessel, 'There is somebody overboard :' but not a word more. Stunned and confounded by the awful accident, and not in the least aware whither I was swimming, I had got under the paddle-wheel; and there I found support. Just at this critical moment, when, through excessive cold and numbness, I was on the point of sinking for the last time, a voice called out in French, ' Courage, and I will save you.' In an instant of time a Belgian sailor seized my hand, and immediately a comrade came to his assistance. On hearing my cry for help, they had come through the paddle-house door on deck, and had descended through the interior of the wheel. Arrived on board, soaked through and shivering in the midnight blast, two police officers kindly stepped forward to my assistance, and I requested to be conducted to a respectable hotel. The Dover Castle, kept by the Widow Dyver (a most appropriate name on such an occasion), was the nearest to us. Whilst the good lady was gazing on me, she appeared greatly affected, and pressed me much to have a doctor. ' There is one close at hand/ said she, ' he will be here in a minute or two.' * Madam/ I replied, * a doctor will not be necessary let me have a couple of blankets. I will roll myself up in them, and lie down on the floor by the side of the fire, and I shall be better at break of day.' So, I lay me down, without taking inward consolation in the way of cordial, much to the astonishment of those who were standing by. Ere the sun rose on the morrow, nature had wonderfully rallied. My cloak, umbrella, hat, and port- manteau, had all been picked up and conveyed to the hotel. The portmanteau and umbrella had remained fixed in the mud, the cloak had floated, and the hat had drifted still farther out. These unlucky remnants of an unlucky misadventure, gave rise to a current 112 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. report in Dover, that somebody must have perished during the night. I now began to have hints from within, that I should have to wrestle with a cold and fever. A short cough, with pain at the chest, gave me to understand that a cold bath at midnight was more likely to do harm than good. Still I felt great repugnance at the very thought of returning home to my house in Yorkshire. There was a French steamer in the harbour, to start for Calais in the afternoon. I embraced the opportunity ; so, having settled my little account at the hotel, and having thanked the worthy landlady for her attention to an unknown gentleman in distress, I bade her farewell ; and whilst shaking her by the hand, I assured her that, wherever I went, I would never fail to recommend to my friends the excellent cheer and comfortable apartments in the Dover Castle Hotel. As we parted, she put a card into my hand, with the address, ' Hotel de Paris, a Calais, tenu par Charles Ledez.' 'This, sir,' said the landlady, as she gave it to me, ' will be of service to you, on your reaching Calais.' And so, indeed, it proved to be ; for this kind- hearted French gentleman did everything in his power to comfort me. We had a roaring fire, at which I gave him a full account ot my recent disaster. He remained with me in the coffee-room until midnight, when he took a ticket for me by the train for Flanders, got my passport viewed, and thus saved me much trouble at the time when I was the least prepared to undertake it.' " Arrived at Bruges, I felt assured that I was called upon to pay the piper for my late wintry dance in Dover's unprotected basin. Symptoms of fever, heats, and shiverings, alternately accompanied by cough and oppression at the chest, warned me forcibly that it was time to keep a sharp look-out. This was on the eve of the great festival of the Holy Blood. I had come all the way from Yorkshire to be present at it, and I could not well brook a disap- pointment. Finding things going worse and worse on the score of health, I resolved at once to have recourse to the lancet, and I forthwith drew twenty-five ounces of blood from my arm. The operation was crowned with complete success, and I immediately became a new man. The fever, cough, and headache went away as though by magic. I found myself competent to attend the proces- sion through the streets of the city, for full four hours ; but to make LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 113 all sure, on the following morning, I took an aperient of twenty grains of jalap, mixed with ten grains of calomel ; and this rectified most satisfactorily all that had been thrown into confusion, caused by. the unfortunate midnight dip already portrayed. " Before I close these memoranda, I have to describe another mishap of a very dark complexion. Let me crave the reader's leave to pen down a few remarks on bone- setting, practised by men called bone-setters, who, on account of the extraordinary advance in the art of surgery, are not now, I fear, held in sufficient estimation amongst the higher orders of society. Every country in Europe, so far as I know to the contrary, has its bone-setter, independent of the surgeon. In ' Johnson's Dictionary,' under the article ' Bone-setting,' we read that a Sir John Denham exclaimed, ' Give me a good bone- setter.' In Spain the bone-setter goes under the significant denomi- nation of Algebrista. Here in England, however, the vast increase of practitioners in the art of surgery, appears to have placed the old original bone-setter in the shade ; and I myself, in many instances, have heard this most useful member of society designated as a mere quack ; but most unjustly so, because a quack is generally considered as one devoid of professional education, and he is too apt to deal in spurious medicines. But not so the bone-setter, whose extensive and almost incessant practice makes ample amends for the loss of any- thing that he might have acquired, by attending a regular course of lectures, or by culling the essence of abstruse and scientific publi- cations. With him theory seems to be a mere trifle. Practice daily and assiduous practice is what renders him so successful in the most complicated cases. By the way in which you put your foot to the ground, by the manner in which you handle an object, the bone-setter, through the mere faculty of his sight, oftentimes without even touching the injured part, will tell you where the ailment lies. Those only who have personally experienced the skill of the bone-setter, can form a true estimation of his merit in managing fractures and in reducing dislocations. Further than this, his services in the healing and restorative art would never be looked for. This last is entirely the province of Galen and his numerous family of practitioners. Wherefore, at the time that I un- equivocally avow to have the uttermost respect for the noble art of H 1 14 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. surgery in all its ramifications, I venture to reserve to myself (without any disparagement to the learned body of gentlemen who profess it), sincere esteem for the old practitioners who do so much for the public good amongst the lower orders, under the denomination of British bone- setters. Many people have complained to me of the rude treatment they have experienced at the hands of the bone-setter but, let these complainants bear in mind that, what has been undone by force, must absolutely be replaced by force ; and that, gentle and emollient applications, although essentially necessary in the commencement, and also in the continuation of the treatment, would ultimately be of no avail, without the final application of actual force to the injured parts. Hence the intolerable and excruciating pain on these occa- sions. The actual state of the accident is to blame not the operator. "Towards the close of the year 1850, I had reared a ladder, full seven yards long, against a standard pear-tree, and I mounted nearly to the top of this ladder with a pruning-knife in hand, in order that I might correct an over-grown luxuriance in the tree. Suddenly the ladder swerved in a lateral direction. I adhered to it manfully, my- self and the ladder coming simultaneously to the ground with astound- ing velocity. In our fall I had just time to move my head in a direction that it did not come in contact with the ground, still, as it after- wards turned out, there was a partial concussion of the brain ; and add to this, my whole side, from foot to shoulder, felt as though it had been pounded in a mill. In the course of the afternoon, I took blood from my arm to the amount of thirty ounces, and followed the affair up the next day with a strong aperient I believe that, with these necessary precautions, all would have gone right again (saving the arm), had not a second misadventure followed shortly on the heels of the first ; and it was of so alarming a nature, as to in- duce me to take thirty ounces more of blood by the lancet. In order to accommodate the position of my disabled arm, I had put on a Scotch plaid in lieu of my coat, and in it I came to dinner. One day the plaid having gone wrong on the shoulders, I arose from the chair to rectify it, and the servant, supposing that I was about to retire, unluckily withdrew the chair. Unaware of this act on his part, I came backwards to the ground with an awful shock, and this no doubt caused concussion of the brain to a considerable amount LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 115 Symptoms of slowly approaching dissolution now became visible. Having settled with my solicitor all affairs betwixt myself and the world, and with my Father Confessor betwixt myself and my Maker, nothing remained but to receive the final catastrophe with Christian resignation. But though I lay insensible with hiccups and subsultus tendimim for fifteen long hours, I at last opened my eyes, and gradu- ally arose from my expected ruin. " I must now say a word or two of the externals damaged by the fall with the ladder. Notwithstanding the best surgical skill, my arm shewed the appearance of stiff and withered deformity at the end of three months from the accident. And now my general state of health was not as it ought to be; for incessant pain prevented sleep, whilst food itself did little good. But my slumbers were strangely affected. I was eternally fighting wild beasts, with a club in one hand, the other being bound up at my breast. Nine bull-dogs one night attacked me on the highroad, some of them having the head of a crocodile. I had now serious thoughts of having the arm am- putated. This operation was fully resolved upon, when luckily, the advice of my trusty gamekeeper, John Ogden, rendered it unneces- sary. One morning, ' Master/ said he to me, ' I 'm sure you 're going to the grave. You '11 die to a certainty. Let me go for our old bone-setter. He cured me, long ago and perhaps he can cure you. 7 It was on the 25th of March, then, #// With some few exceptions, the light is on the back of the insect, and invisible when the electra are closed. The bird would require a pin, or a needle and thread, to keep them expanded. Again the inmates of the nest itself are fond of fire-flies. Methinks I hear the following dialogue : " Mammy, I'm still hungry, and have room in my stomach for two APPENDIX. 595 or three more flies. I wish you would reach me those you have just stuck up at the nursery-door." " I can't, my chuck ; they are to act as mould candles, to keep away the bats which would eat you up." " What are bats, mammy ? I never have seen such a thing in our nursery." Pardon me, ye serious ornithologists. The subject on which I am writing is a farce, and I must treat it as such. Ye grave doctors in zoology, pardon the effusion. I cannot treat the subject otherwise. Incubatory propensities of the "Hedge Accentor'' Sir, Having examined attentively the article " Cuckoo " m your last Chronicle, I beg to state for the benefit of your ornithological perusers, that I have just now in a clipped holly-bush, a hedge sparrow's nest with three unfledged young ones in it. On Wednes- day last it had three eggs in it. On Saturday it contained three young birds, apparently just hatched. This morning, Monday, I have inspected the nest, with three little hedge-sparrows in it. They gaped for their breakfast, and appear to be doing well. Men of science now call this sweet warbler the hedge accentor ; but here, in Yorkshire amongst us natives it always goes by the name of Dicky Dunnock. Should any of your readers remark, with Cervantes, that "one swallow does not make a summer" "una golondrinano hache verano," I will further add that the year before last, in the last week of August, I found a Dickey Dunnock's nest here, in a yew-bush, with four eggs in it. To THE " GARDENERS' CHRONICLE" August 4, 1851. To the Rev. A. C. Smith. WALTON HALL, June 23, 1857. Dear Sir, I will try my best to give you the instructions you require. You must not use arsenical soap, for two reasons. First, as it cannot be applied to every part of the skin, inside and out, it is not efficient. Secondly, the frequent use of it would injure your health. Last year, seeing poor Mr Johnson, of the* Royal Liver- pool Institution, broken down in health, I asked him to Walton 596 APPENDIX. Hall, and he accepted the invitation. On questioning him as to what had brought him to his present state, he said he had been for weeks preparing skins of lions, &c., and that he had been working up to the elbows in arsenical soap. He returned to Liverpool and died. Now, there is no danger whatever in using the dilution of corrosive sublimate in alcohol, because, being liquid, no dust, or small particles, can be taken into your system through the medium of breathing. Moreover, although corrosive sublimate be the most deadly poison known to insects, it is not so deadly to other animals ; and I can assure you that, although I have used it most copiously for above forty years, I have never experienced the smallest incon- venience from it. I once read of a Turk who was in the habit of taking sixty grains of corrosive sublimate per diem. But do not misunderstand me. I never use the sublimate in paste, or powder. With this preliminary I will now proceed to business ; first recom- mending you to read attentively what I have written on this head in the " Wanderings " and " Essays." Every feather and every part of the bird's skin is the natural food of the insect. The insect also feeds on furs, &c. Now, to secure these articles from the depredations of the moth, they must be either enclosed in an aromatic atmosphere, or they must be steeped in a solution of corrosive sublimate. The first is troublesome at times, and will fail for want of due attention. Thus, when I was leaving Rome for Naples, I had two large trunks of specimens, and I wished them to stay in Rome till my return. This was during summer ; a period when the appetite of the moth is most keen. Into each of these boxes I put the wing of a bird, which had been skinned, but not steeped in the solution. On my return, the feathers of these wings were entirely consumed, whilst the feathers of the prepared birds were untouched. Corrosive sublimate is easily carried with you when on your travels. Perhaps the best mode of conveying it in powder is in a flask surrounded by leather, such a one as shooters carry to hold brandy. Alcohol is cheap and plentiful abroad. The corrosive sublimate must be very finely pounded. Highly-rectified spirit of wine may be diluted with water equal in quantity. Thus, to one quart bottle of alcohol, I would add one quart bottle of water. Into this, I would put a table-spoonful of corrosive sub- APPENDIX. 597 sublimate, and nothing more is required. See the " Wander- ings." Birds must be steeped in the solution before they are skinned ; quadrupeds, after they are skinned. In steeping waterfowl, more attention is required in steeping land birds, because the feathers of the first are more impenetrable. Let us steep a duck. I put it on its back in any convenient vessel, and then shake it well, first by holding it by the beak, then by the feet, then by one wing, and so on, till every part of the plumage is completely saturated. This done, the outside of the bird is poisoned for ever. I then hold it up by the beak and press every part of the plumage down with a little stick, in order to drain off the liquid. This done, I go to the kitchen fire, if there be none else- where, and hold the bird to it, first one side, then the other ; and I often "shake it in the air till I get the whole of the plumage com- pletely dried. I then dissect it, and I wash the inside well with the solution (see the " Wanderings ") j and all is done for ever, as far as preserving your specimen from the depredations of the moth is concerned. The quadruped must be skinned first. This done, put it into the solution ; then, with a brush, such as you use for hair, brush it well, first downwards with the natural range of the fur, and then upwards, until you have completely cleansed it of all its impurities. This done, stuff it whilst it is wet ; or if you only want the skin, then place it on a board, and dry it, taking care to brush it from head to tail, and you will have a skin as clean and beautiful as can possibly be imagined ; and no matter where you stow it away (after the skin is quite dried), it will be perfectly safe from the moth and damp. If these instructions be not sufficiently clear, you must point out the obscurity, and I will try and throw light on it. Should you pass the winter in Rome, you will find, in superabundance, the finest specimens of nearly all the European birds, lying for sale on the stalls of the Pantheon. Wags used to call this quarter of Rome my studio. I would sometimes visit it four times a day, and I always found something new. I forgot to mention that insects must be steeped after they have been dissected. So must serpents. 598 APPENDIX. Letters on Bird- Stuffing. To the Editor of the Illustrated London News* Sir, Your weekly publication is always read at Walton Hall with pleasure and profit. As you have done me the honour to place my name in so advan- tageous a light, I trust that you will kindly allow me to draw your attention to the following points. I had been requested to send specimens to the Great Exhibition, but I declined to do so. Nevertheless, in order to show the lovers of natural history what can be done in taxidermy, when true principles are called into action, I have sent specimens in the four departments of quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and insects to the Royal College of Surgeons ; and I feel emboldened to say, that if you would do me the favour to inspect them, I am sure Professor Owen will obligingly show them to you. When I had examined the natural history in the Exhibition, I went away dissatisfied j and I am confi- dent that you yourself will experience a similar feeling, when you shall have inspected the specimens which I respectfully submit to your notice. Thd mode of preparation universally followed in taxidermy is so devoid of real principle, that he who pursues it, be he ever so clevei and intelligent, will never succeed in producing an exact copy of nature's true form and appearance. I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES WATERTON. Letter of the Rev. Mr Dennis to the Editor, &c. Sir, I have just read in your excellent paper, Mr Waterton's stricture on the taxidermy in the Great Exhibition, and with all my respect for the eminent naturalist's opinion, I cannot bring myself, * This letter was printed in the Illustrated London News. Mr Dennis attacked it, and hence the ensuing correspondence. APPENDIX. 599 being an exhibitor in that art, tamely to submit to them. The peacock I exhibited, was, when I left it there, I felt convinced, a very near approach to the peculiar character of that bird when its wondrous train is expanded. Now, possibly, having no case, the currents in the building may partially have disarranged the tail feathers. During the process of stuffing the bird (which occupied, for want of leisure, several months), I made the live bird my study ; and if that is not the real principle of taxidermy, I know of no other. The mechanical processes are merely accessory. The creature must be seen alive to be stuffed properly. If any person is curious enough to compare some snowy owls in the Exhibition with one alive in the Zoological Gardens, he would hardly know them to be birds of the same species. It was my intention, when the Exhibition was over, to offer the peacock to the British Museum ; and I think I cannot do better than fulfil that intention ; perhaps Mr Waterton will allow it is good enough for that purpose. May I beg the favour of the insertion of this note. I have the honour to be, sir, your very obedient servant, J. B. P. DENNIS. BURY Sx EDMUNDS, September 8, 1851. To the Editor, &c. Sir, If the public had been duly informed that the specimens of taxidermy in the Crystal Palace were deposited there for ad- miration only, I should not venture to trouble you with these few lines. Under the delusion that a man's opinion is always considered free in public exhibitions, I now find by the communication of the Rev. J. B. P. Dennis to you on the i8//&, that I have been in error ; and that I ought not to have sent you the remarks which you kindly admitted into your columns of August 2. I crave pardon for the mistake Humanum est errare. 6oo APPENDIX. That gentleman (by having used the word "perhaps" in his late communication) seems to doubt that I will allow his stuffed peacock to be good enough for presentation to the Crystal Palace. His "real principle of taxidermy" ought to have sug- gested to him, that much time, very much time and labour, are to be spent upon the legs and feet of large birds, especially in order to make these parts retain there pristine form and beauty. On viewing the shrivelled legs and toes of Mr Dennis's peacock, we feel dissatisfied ; and we are at a loss to determine whether in- ability or neglect has been the cause of such a lamentable defor- mity in his bird. When your reverend correspondent shall have cleared up this little matter satisfactorily, I will then invade the upper regions of his peacock. At present it were useless to inspect the garret, when the foundation itself is seen to be defective. I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES WATERTON. WALTON HALL, September 27, 1851. Letter of the Rev. Mr Dennis to the Editor of the Illustrated London News. Sir, If Mr Waterton's sally has not quite cut away my under- standing, it at least aims at leaving poor " Pavo," like the squire in the ballad, " in doleful dumps." I beg Mr Waterton's pardon ; the pegs stand before the person of the bird. I have fallen inadver- tently into the vain humour of the creature which is said to lament the thickness of its timbers. I acknowledge my fault. Humanum esterrare. Even Waterton's " Wanderings " form no exception. My adversary, I confess, has touched me on a weak point ; and no doubt, his quick eye, upon the rule of setting a thief to catch one, has found many more. If not, I can show him them, and gladly too, for I never said that the bird was perfection, a copy at most. I only asserted what I find Mr Waterton in no mind to deny, that the appearance of the bird is a near approach to its peculiar character, when its tail is spread, and that to copy nature in all her ways, is APPENDIX. 601 the true principle of the art. If your readers disbelieve that this has been in some measure accomplished, I say, let them suspend their judgment until they have an opportunity of seeing the bird alive. I quite agree with Mr Waterton's observations about the legs of large birds ; and it was my intention to have attended to those of the bird in question ; but at the time (no exhibition of it being then thought of) I had not leisure. I could point out several other de- fects from accidental causes ; but none of them are of a nature to draw us away from the question Mr Waterton started, with reference to the principles of taxidermy in the Exhibition ; who now finding himself attacked, and hard pressed upon it, is fain to beat a retreat by the legs of my peacock. He seemed to wish to sit supremely ele- vated as a critic in the art ; but to use his own happy expression, (omitting its grammar) was too wide awake to have sent any illus- trations of his execution in it to the Crystal Palace. Remember Icams's height (Perhaps the observation stings) ; Thou shouldst have asked before thy flight Dame Wisdom for a pair of wings. May I, sir, crave your indulgence once more only ? and I have the honour to remain, sir, your obedient servant, J. B. P. DENNIS. The Peacock at the Crystal Palace. To the Editor. " Quantum mutatus ! " Sir, By Nimrod, this is the most unsightly bird that ever a wan- dering forester fell in with ! Could Juno see her once comely pet in such a sorry plight, would she not scold the author of all its miseries ? Where are the peacock's nostrils I ask ? Where is that arched protuberance on the bill, which in life was so apparent, and 602 APPENDIX. guarded the nasal sinuosities ? Alas it has shrunk to nothing, caus- ing the face of the bird to be as ugly as that of poor Deiphobus, the Trojan, truncas inhonesto vulnere nares! Let us proceed onwards, and take a view of the head. There is much that ails it. The crown is wrong, the cheeks are wrong, the orbits are wrong, and the ears are wrong. The skin, not dissected to where the beak emerges from it (al- though it ought to have been), has dried upon the cranium. A similar disaster is visible at the mandibles. The orbits, with their inner skin still adhering to them (and which should have been cut away), are distorted and irregular, and far too large ; whilst the fleshy integuments at the ear, having no business to be left there, cause the present forbidding appearance in that quarter. The " real principle of taxidermy " ought to have suggested to the operator, that, in order to make these parts retain their pristine appearance, there required minutest operations for many a day, after the bird itself had been set up. Thus, for instance, had the skin been effectually prevented from adhering to the jaw-bones, and to the cranium ; had the orbits been subjected, day after day, to a most delicate adjustment, the artificial eyes having been removed each day to facilitate that adjustment; had the parts at the ear undergone an entire dissection ; had the rotundity over the eyes, so beautiful in life, been perfectly restored ; and lastly, had every indi- vidual feather been arranged according to nature's unerring plan, then, indeed, the admirer of her charming works would not have had his nerves affected, and his eyes disgusted, by a spoliation of plumage, and a deformity of physiognomy in this unfortunate pea- cock, extending quite away from the nostrils to the neck. Cervantes says, " quando la cabeza duele, duelen los miembros," that is, when the head is out of sorts, so are the members. This I will show in my next communication. I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES WATERTON. APPENDIX. 603 The Peacock in the Crystal Palace. To the Editor of the Illustrated London News. "'Tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions." Sir, Leaving the head and all its ailments to a consultation of doctors deeply versed in modern taxidermy, I proceed to examine the neck and breast, so true in their proportions when the bird was living so altered now in death. Their once charming hue no longer meets the eye. Their feathers lie in sad confusion, and forcibly condemn the hand that has placed them in such a dis- tressing irregularity. Had the reverend operator been aware that skin is thickest where the feathers grow, and thinnest where there are none, he might have prevented the ugliness which he has stamped upon these ill-con- ditioned parts. By the practice of internal modelling, he would easily have gained his end. But such has been his perverseness in pursuing the old illusive path, that he seems never once, even by mere chance, to have deviated into the right road. The thighs are sickly objects, and are in neglected plumage. One is smaller than the other, as though it were labouring under an attack of long protracted rheumatism, whilst gross mismangement at the knees is painfully apparent. The shoulders, too, are twisted out of symmetry ; and the feathers on the rump, for want of daily attention to them, have been allowed to dry down flat upon the skin, flat as a shrovetide pancake ; and this, too, in the immediate vicinity of an elevated tail! Craving a small corner in the next Illustrated News for a short concluding paper. I have .the honour to be, sir, your obedient and humble servant, CHARLES WATERTON. SCARBRO', October 2$, 1851. 604 APPENDIX. The Peacock in the Crystal Palace. To the Editor of the Illustrated London News. " Ad imum Qualis ab incepto." Sir, When spring has showered her choicest bounties upon our favourite feathered tribes, 'tis then we see the peacock's train in all its pride and glories. But when the Rev. Mr Dennis tries to " copy nature in all her ways," 'tis then he makes a mockery of nature, and shrouds her every charm. Feathers in the tails of birds are moved by one muscle, and the movement must, of course, be uniform. Unlike our fingers, a shaft in the peacock's tail cannot move singly. Hence the whole of the radiation is regular. Had our operator trusted to his hands and to time alone, without the marring use of wires, he might possibly have been successful in some degree. But as the bird now stands, there can scarcely be seen two shafts which radiate equally, whilst all the minor plumage is irregular and distorted. In fact, there is no truth throughout the entire train. He has produced, at best, a gorgeous display of taxidermal impotence. We may say of this peacock what the Roman poet said of the young married lady, splendide mendax. The wings are on a par with the rest. Their skin cleaves to the bones, and thus causes the pinions to be as angular as Don Quixote's horse. The Reverend Taxidermist, having cited me by name before the public, and having expressed at the same time a hope that, perhaps, "Mr Waterton" will allow his peacock to be good enough for the "British Museum," I had no alternative but to meet the summons. Wishing the peacock of the Rev. J. B. P. Dennis a safe journey to its intended destination, and thanking the editor very sincerely for his attention in admitting my scraps, I have the honour to be his very obedient servant, CHARLES WATERTON. SCARBRO', October 29, 1851. APPENDIX, 605 To the Superioress of the Convent of the Good Shepherd at Dalbeth. WALTON HALL, Nov. 30, 1853. Dear Madam, In your letter of petition, in support of your excellent Institution, you have asked for the crumbs which fall from my table. If a joke may be allowed on a serious subject, I would say in answer, that all the crumbs which fall from my table are mortgaged to a huge Cochin-China fowl, which receives them in payment for awaking me by his crowing every morning at three o'clock. But as he does not feed on my cheese, I find that I can spare a mite from it. Pray accept it ; and if you enter the trifling donation in your book, please put it down as coming from a friend. I always make this stipulation on similar occasions. I remain, dear madam, your obedient humble servant, CHARLES WATERTON. Don Velasquez and the mysterious city of Iximaya. Velasquez ! " tu, nisi ventis Debes ludibrium, cave." Did I not consider the " Illustrated Memoir " sold by Professors Anderson and Morris, as " the baseless fabric of a vision," I should fairly turn pale at the barbarous deeds of their hero Don Velasquez de San Salvador. His unprovoked irruption into a peaceful city, his ruthless slaughter of the unoffending natives, and his cruel robbery, in the persons of the two little Aztec children, who had been guarded there as a sacred treasure, are acts which fill the mind with horror. But to proceed with the adventures of this " man of family and education, though a trader in indigo," as the guardians inform us. The ruthless rover, having gained his ends, had nothing now but to rid himself of whatever might jeopardite his "History of Iximaya," hereafter to be offered to a British Public. 6o6 APPENDIX. Thus he tells us that his travelling comrade, Hammond, fell mortally wounded in Iximaya ; the audacious Heurtis, betrayed by a sweetheart, was sacrificed to the angry gods ; and the " faithful Antonio" disappeared for ever. The bloodhounds, too, although of " the purest Spanish breed," somehow or other could not trace the hero's footsteps. Aware that " to pass the gate was impossible," he and fifteen of his party most opportunely found ropes at hand. By these they descended the wall, forty feet high, during the night, and then swam across the moat. Clever and hardy adventurers ! Arrived at the place where the young traitor priest was waiting with the two Aztec children, our hero took possession of them. Another conflict ensued in which "many of the horsemen were slain." He then "reluctantly parted with most of his faithful Indians ! " and secured his own retreat. But as the young priest Vaalpeor might possibly have been unpleasant evidence in times to come, he, most fortunately for Velasquez, took to his bed and died. Now, I ask, what are we to call this " History of the Aztec Lilli- putians ; " dedicated to his Royal Highness Prince Albert, by Professors Anderson and Morris ? One single word will suffice : FICTION. A remark or two here may not be out of place. Some forty years ago, I went in quest of Lake Parima. No mule or horse could possibly have gone with me. All was forest and fallen trees, and densely matted underwood in many places, and huge projecting rocks, and creeks, and swamps, and quagmires. These were real impediments to discovery. Not so with Don Velasquez. He marched easily on to Iximaya, with his " cavalcade of mules and baggage" proof quite sufficient that there was a road clear and open from the known country whence he started, to the very walls of the city. Then it follows, of consequence, that if the narrative of Velasquez be not a fiction, this road must have been open to other explorers, who would certainly have discovered Iximaya, which, on account of its situation, has been unknown to the world for three long centuries. My own opinion is that the Aztec Lilliputians are nothing more nor less than accidental dwarfs ap- proaching to idiotcy. APPENDIX. 607 The King of the Gorillas. I have paid much attention to the economy of monkeys for more than half a century ; and I have here a young gorilla, which I dis- sected after it had ceased to live. On reading the account of M. du Chaillu's late lecture in Glasgow, I unhesitatingly pronounced it to be replete with the grossest errors and exaggerations, so far as apes were concerned. In his book itself are found the most incompatible performances of his royal gorilla. Sometimes it is a tottering cripple ; then, the strongest beast of the forest ; occasionally, the determined foe of man ; again, flying before his presence ; never in the trees (its proper habitat), but always on the ground at one time, roaring in phrenzy (apes never roar) ; at another time, punishing itself by beating its un- offending breast so furiously, that the sound of the strokes might be heard a mile off. But all this is a trifle, when compared with the unprovoked mur- der of an unlucky negro by this ferocious monarch of the forest. This Proteus ape felled the .unfortunate man to the ground, by a single blow from its unmerciful fore-leg ; and then frightfully lacerated the abdomen, not with its teeth (the proper weapons), but with its nails, which are flat, and as impotent as our own for such a butchery. After this, with a rationality due only to man himself, the royal brute considered the gun as an instrument of mischief, and he actually smashed it to' pieces with his fore-legs ! Thus, in these our latter times of wonder and credulity, M. du Chaillu offers to the British public a new monster of an animal a kind of modern Centaur, half-monkey, half-man ; dignified with the high sounding name of " king of the gorillas ; " uniting in itself, with wondrous deficiency of proper adaptation, the discordant ingredients of strength and weaknesss, of courage and of cowardice, of slowness and agility, to which may be added a considerable portion of human intelligence. In fine, let M. du Chaillu, and the learned naturalists who en- courage him in his strange career of lecturing, say and think what 608 APPENDIX. they choose of the "king of the gorillas," alias the black ape of Western Africa, its true position on the page of natural history must cer- tainly come to this, viz : when on a tree it is a paragon of perfec- tion in the eyes of an Omnipotent Creator, but when on the ground a bungled composition of nature. CHARLES WATERTON. WALTON HALL, Octobers, 1861. The Gorilla. There seems to be a strange inclination amongst a certain class of philosophers to lower man in the scale of creation and elevate the brute. I stop not to investigate this wild and impious theory. Suffice it to remark that reason is found in man alone. Thus, your favourite dog has an ulcer on its foot. Place what plaster you may choose upon it, the animal will tear it off as often as applied. Not so with your child, who has attained the use of reason. You have taught it submission to the doctor's orders. It retains its plaster, and the sore gets well. Ovid, sweet bard, full twenty hundred years ago, drew a correct line betwixt the rational and irrational world worthy of the Propa- ganda itself. In writing on the creation, this delightful poet says : " Sanctius his animal, mentisque capacius altae, deerat adhuc, et quod dominare in csetera posset. Natus homo est." "There was wanting a more perfect animal, one more capable of a lofty mind, and which could hold dominion over all the rest : man was born." And con- tinues the poet, " whilst all other animals have their downward vision on the earth, man received a sublime countenance, and had orders to gaze on the heavens, and to lift up his erect visage to the skies" " Pronaque cum spectant animalia ccetera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, caelumque tueri, Jussit et erectos ad ccelum tollere vultus." Such testimony from a pagan poet ought to cause a blush on the cheeks of modern philosophers, who are ever on the look-out to counteract the arrangements of an all-wise Providence. Man only, then, has received the gift of reason ; although we shall see in the APPENDIX. 609 sequel, that some of the monkey tribe (the ape, to wit) have been brought forward to share the noble boon of reason, with the lord of the creation itself. I have already written largely on the monkey tribe. But as the gorilla has lately caused a considerable sensation among our learned naturalists, and has been said to possess qualities which it never could possess, and to perform feats which it never could perform, I in- tend to confine my remarks to this hitherto misrepresented and un- offending animal alone. America produces no apes throughout its whole extent. In the remote regions of the Old World we are to look for the abode of this harmless animal. There it exists, from the barren rock of Gibraltar, quite into the fertile forests on each side of the equator. The eastern parts of Asia, and the western of Africa, are famous for their enormous apes. The one from Borneo is of a yellow-red colour, whilst that from the river Gaboon and its adjacent regions is black. There are none larger than these as yet discovered. The eastern ape is called the orang-outang. That from the west is known by the name of gorilla, probably a corruption from the Portuguese. Both these giant apes are magnificent in stature, mild in disposition, and shy on the approach of man. In habits and propensities they perfectly agree. In anatomy they differ somewhat; but this difference can only interest those who find gratification in splitting a hair, and in producing words quite hard enough to set one's teeth on an edge. If we are to put credence in that which modern naturalists have written concerning the gorilla, we must at once concede to it the reasoning powers of rational man ; and allow it to possess an amount of strength far surpassing anything that Hercules himself ever did or could perform. Fancy this supposed ferocious brute, although a frugiverous animal and noways addicted to touch animal food, occasionally waylaying man, and condemning him to immediate strangulation. We are gravely told, that "the natives of the Gaboon country hold the gorilla in great dread, fearing it even more than the lion itself, on account of its furtively murderous disposition. Concealed amongst the thick branches of the forest trees, the gorilla, itself unseen, 2 Q 610 APPENDIX. watches the approach of the unsuspecting negro. Should he pass under the tree, woe betide him, for the gorilla lets down its terrible hind foot, grasps its victim round the throat, lifts him from the earth, and drops him on the ground dead." I was not aware that any monkey in the whole world had a dis- position furtively murderous, or could despatch an innocent victim so promptly and so effectually, especially when we consider the situation of the one, and the supposed aggressive qualities of the other, added to the locality of the hangman. The gorilla, like most of his family, is not famed for strength in the hinder parts, which seem to have been given him by nature, not to offend, but merely as ordinary props to assist the body amongst the trees, where the animal lives and dies. In the fore parts alone, in all monkies, enormous strength and powers of action are centred. Nevertheless, the gorilla, a timid and unoffending animal, prepares itself for battle and strangles a victim which it cannot eat. And how, let me ask, w^mld the gorilla manage to conceal its huge body from the negro, amongst the thick branches of the forests, when we know, to a certainty, that be the forest ever so extensive, you never, by any chance, find the branches of the trees near the ground. It is only towards the top of the trees that thick branches are found. Weneslaus Peters, the German Artist. I visited Rome in the year of grace 1817. I took with 'me a beautiful red bird, called the scarlet cotinga, which I had prepared in the wilds of Guiana. One morning, whilst I was in Canova's studio, and was showing him this bird, a man entered, and seeing it on my forefinger, he appeared, as it were, enraptured, and he earnestly begged that I would lend it him for a few days, in order that he might make a drawing of it for his grand picture of the Creation. I complied with his request ; and he gave the bird a most conspicuous place on a free. Sometime after this he brought the scarlet cotinga to my lodgings, and with it an admirably well-executed British pointer dog in crayon, APPENDIX. 611 which he begged me to accept and to keep for his sake. It is now at Walton Hall; and the identical cotinga is on the staircase, just opposite to the large window. Peters died at Rome ; and Po pe Gregory XVI. bought his picture of the Creation, and placed it in the Vatican in the year 1836. CHARLES WATEETON. MYDDELTON LODGE, October 2, 1861. Notes on Sterne. The Dead Ass. " ' And this,' said he, putting the remains of a r crust into his wallet, 'should have been thy portion, hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me.' " None but those who have lived in Spain, or read the works of Cervantes de Saavedra, can form a correct idea of the kindly feeling which exists between a Spanish peasant and his faithful ass. They may be said to love each other cordially. But, here in England, this poor patient porter is seldom considered in any other light than that of a stubborn and neglected slave. We may see it picking up a scanty fare on the side of our Queen's high- way, or chewing thistles in the neighbouring hedges; the sport of idle village urchins, who delight in adding pain to misery. Often as I stroll along through lanes and skirts of towns, where this outcast son of labour has still a few roods of land to call his own, I exclaim : " Thou art so bare and full of wretchedness ! famine is in thy cheeks, need and oppression stareth in thy eyes ; upon thy back hangs ragged misery ! " In Spain, however, this patient carrier has comforts rarely found elsewhere. Good treatment there has altered his downcast looks, and shown us that mercy and a better kind of food have not been thrown away upon him. Almost every labouring family in Spain can boast a favourite ass ; and Cervantes has drawn with such a master-hand the affection which exists between them, that I never read the touching story of " The Dead Ass," in Sterne, without joining in sorrow with the "mourner," and lamenting the loss which he had sustained. Cervantes tells us, so great was the anxiety of Sancho Panza for 612 APPENDIX. his only ass, that he got himself into an ugly scrape by requesting no less a personage than the duenna of the duke's castle to look after it, and see that it were well taken care of. The same Sancho, in writing to his wife, says, That he would not leave it behind him were he himself to be made Grand Turk. And when he was just about to abandon his government in the island of Barataria, he embraced his ass ; then he gave it a kiss on the forehead, exclaiming : " Come to me, my friend and companion, the bearer of my troubles and my miseries ; when I associated with thee, my only care was to repair thy trappings, and to nourish thy dear little body. Then, indeed happy were my hours, my days, and my years. But since I have lost sight of thee, and soared over the towers of ambition and pride, innumerable miseries have entered into my soul, ' mil miserias, mil trabajos, y quatro mil des associegoss.' " And afterwards, when Sancho and his ass had tumbled headlong into a deserted pit on their way to see the duke, he exclaimed, " When my remains and those of my dear ass shall have been discovered, the people will know at once who we are, as Sancho Panza was never known to be separated from his ass, nor his ass from Sancho Panza." In fine, having departed from his government, he told the duchess that he had no other company than that of his as " Sin otro a compana- miento que el de su asno." These, and innumerable other instances in Spanish writers, let us at once into the familiarity and friendly feeling which exist between the peasant of that country and his favourite ass feelings never to be met with in our own enlightened realm of England. The mourner in the affecting story of Sterne's " Dead Ass," had lost two fine boys (" the finest lads in all Germany ") by the small- pox ; and in order that his only remaining child might be spared, he had undertaken a long and dreary pilgrimage, from the farthest borders of Franconia to the shrine of St Jago in Spain. On his journey back to his own country, the poor ass died. It had been a patient partner of his pilgrimage. " It had ate the same bread with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend." I can fancy that I see the sorrowing, way-worn traveller sitting on a stone bench at the door, and sighing bitterly as he gazed on the pannel and bridle of his departed ass. Poor mourner! he again took APPENDIX. 613 his crust of bread out of his wallet, and laid it on the bridle ; " and then gave a deep sigh." But, alas ! in vain. He had lost what would never be restored to him. His faithful ass his only comfort as he journeyed onwards the help of his family, the plaything of his two dear children, now no more, lay dead on the side of the road in a foreign country, far from its native home. And as the mourner paid the last tribute to its memory, by arranging its accoutrements on the stone bench on which he sat, " he looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made, and then gave a sigh." " La Fleur offered him money. The old man said he did not want it. It was not the value of the ass, but the loss of him. His ass had been the patient companion of his journey, and it had ate the same bread with him." I, who passed two years in Andalusia, can enter fully into this sad exhibition of the mourner's grief. And when I am in a pensive mood, shut out in this sylvan retreat from the follies and anxieties of a delusive world around me, I turn to the story of the " Dead Ass." It does me good. I find nothing exaggerated in it ; and in replacing the book on the table, I exclaim emphatically with the author of it, " Did we love each other as this poor soul loved his ass, it would be something." February 5, 1862. The Pythoness. The public have been informed by the London Review, that " all hopes of hatching are at an end." I never had any hopes at all of the lately adopted midwifery. Success would have been at utter variance with the infallible economy of old Dame Nature herself. Should some future pythoness be coaxed to circumvent her eggs with the intention of rendering them fruitful, I will ask permission (not having the fear of snakes before my eyes) to enter the lying-in apartment. There I would introduce my hands amongst the folds of her hard and cold and scaly body ; and if I found warmth and softness in it, analogous to what exists in regular incubators, then I would frankly own that I had been in error. I am quite of opinion, that had any 614 APPENDIX. infant serpent popped its head out of an egg, placed under the maternal care of our captive pythoness, it would have owed its existence to warm air and blankets, and to nothing else. The internal heat alone, greater than that of the male, is the sole incubat- ing operator, for we are not informed that the pythoness possesses a single quality similar to those of animals which hatch their own eggs. Even after the incubation is over, and the pythoness still possesses a greater amount of internal heat than that of the male serpent, it would not be conclusive. In our own species, heat varies consider- ably. Had I myself gone to the Arctic regions with Captain Ross, I am quite sure I should have perished for want of heat at the very time that he felt warm and comfortable. Again, had he accom- panied me to the tropics, I fancy that he would have sweated away like a tallow-candle under the noonday sun, whilst I would have been quite at my ease. I am not a believer in what is generally called a sun-stroke, or coup de soleil To prove this, during several years I went out of the house, exactly at twelve o'clock, and stood bareheaded under the heliscentre ray, bareheaded in latitude six north of the equator, for a quarter of an hour. My companions were terrified for the result. I assured them that I apprehended no manner of danger. April 13, 1862. To Miss Ransome. WALTON HALL, April 18, 1865. Dear Madam, As your courteous favour did not require an immediate acknowledgment, I put it aside, having pressing business on hand at the time. You may depend upon it the starlings never use the ear in procuring food. That they do so is an old story which has escaped from the dusty volumes of my old grandmother's library, collected there for the use of nurseries on dismal winter evenings. I live in the midst of starlings, having coaxed them to live in congregated numbers during even the summer months. Yesterday I counted forty starlings on the lawn within six yards of the sitting-rooms windows. They were all hard at work like London APPElYDIX. aldermen on a haunch of venison. The worms had been induced by change of weather to approach the surface from below. I distinctly saw the starlings drawing them up without the least appearance that the ear had anything to do in the business. They seized the resist- ing worms with the end of their bills, just as your own dunghills would have done. I saw them distinctly at work, and of course I adhered to my unaltered opinion, that starlings never use the ear in order to acquire a supply of food. I have the honour to be, madam, very respectfully, your obedient servant, CHARLES WATERTON. To Alfred Ellis, Esq. WALTON HALL, April 3, 1861. My dear Sir, Many thanks for your most welcome letter. I see by its contents that we have both been in the same boat during the terrible frost. Still you have the advantage in your Fauna, inasmuch as that yours is on the increase, through the benevolence of your neighbours; whereas, on the contrary, mine is visibly on the decrease, owing to the folly of our landed proprietors here, who allow their keepers to poison, trap, and shoot everything that is not pheasant, hare, or partridge. Were it not for my park wall, every poor magpie, jay, and hawk would be exterminated. Lately, a Yankee traveller has been gulling our wise men with a most fabulous account of the gorilla, in a lecture before the Royal Geographical Society. One is mortified to think that such absurdities as the Yankee detailed should be swallowed so easily by our grave doctors in zoology, and declared to be sound information. An account of the lecture has appeared in the Field of March 2, 1861, and has been sent to me, I conjecture by Dr Buckland. As many parts of the lecture are at variance with what I have written on monkeys, I considered that I had a right to take up the pen. So I have given to the public my opinion of the lecture. It has appeared in the Gardeners' Chronicle of March 3oth, p. 288. If you have not seen it, I can send it to you, and you can return it at your convenience. I have now a curiosity most probably unique throughout the whole world. It is the head of an old sheep, 616 APPENDIX. without horns from the cranium, but from its right ear, more than half way down, there proceeds a huge horn more than a foot in length, and six inches and a half in circumference at its thickest part. The ear itself is not in the least diseased. There are no bones in it whatever, nor any cartilage to connect it with the skull. In a word, it has only the support from the ear which the surround- ing hairs have. The appearance of such a horn, on such a place, is an astounding phenomenon, and must put all our wise men to their last shifts to account for it. I long to show it to you. I need not say how happy I should be to see you here, especially when the cherry trees are in bloom, as they shortly will be. To the Same. SCARBOROUGH, November 6, 1861. My dear Sir, I am delighted at your success in protecting our poor birds, which are unmercifully slaughtered by every rascally gamekeeper in this neighbourhood. Already two fine cormorants took up their winter abode at Walton Hall, unfortunately they paid a visit to my neighbour's lake at Nostell. The keeper shot one of them and brought it over to me, thinking it a wonderfully fine prize. I told the fellow that his next exploit would be to hang his own mother. These two cormorants were so unconscious of danger, that they came within pistol shot of where I was standing. The pochards, the teal, the wigeons, the tufted ducks, and mallards, have made their appearance at my lake ; and in the evenings we can count from sixty to seventy carrion crows assembled in the park for the night. Also several flocks of-p|overs. I have seen no fieldfares or redwings. To the Same. WALTON HALL, January 4, 1865. My dear Sir, Our pochards this year are absolutely as tame as the domestic ducks. After an exile of the large green red-headed woodpecker, this beautiful bird has returned, and goes to bed every night (I myself watch him) with three fine shrill notes, in the APPENDIX. 617 starling's tower at the grotto ! My neighbour, alas ! has killed the only bittern that has been seen here for seventy-five years. " What a world we live in, master," my keeper once said to me when I had refused to allow him to hang a poor cat which belonged to a harm- less old woman in the village. My Fauna, unlike yours, does not thrive among our long chimney cannibals. We have scarcely any ringdoves this year. To Norman Moore, Esq. WALTON HALL, March 13, 1865, My dear Norman, Although we are in Lent, it does not follow that you should be in exile. My door is ever open to you. How do you come on in the badgering line across the channel ? I have had a tremendous cold. I cannot remember ever to have had so severe a one. The rooks dare not continue at their newly-formed nests. The woodpecker visits us every night and morning. I wish that you had been here last week. A French giant paid us a morn- ing visit. He stood exactly seven feet seven inches in his shoes. Your last letter was excellent. Believe me, very truly yours, CHARLES WATERTON. INDEX. ABB Raynal on Atlantis, 146 Abylse, 146 Accident on Mount Cenis, 42 out shooting, 44 Waterton's fatal, 131 Acorns food for birds, 172, 317 Acosta, 191 Acquaintance of Waterton with Swain- son, 518 AckrOyd, Nanny, 378 Act of throwing, 153 Actaeon, 443 Actseon's hounds, 217 Acts against Roman Catholics, 7 Adaption of structure to habits, 1 73 Adder, 427 Advantages of fox-hunting over horse- racing, 222 Adventure at Antigua, 42 at Cadiz, 23 at St Peter's, 44 at the Castle of St Angelo, 44 first, on water, 15 fox-hunting, 21 in Orinoque, 34 in railway carriage, 576 on way to Rome, 80 sleep-walking, 17 with alligator, 55 with Dutch officers, 138 with snake, 442 "Adventures in West Africa," 582 Advice of Sir Joseph Banks, 31 ^Eson, story of, 289 Age of the raven, 288 Agincourt, a Waterton at, 4 Ague, 32 Aix-la-Chapelle, 77 Aix-la-Chapelle, Chaffinches at, 338 Owls at, 284 Alameda at Angustura, 426 at Malaga, 27 Alexander, Captain, 44 Algebrista, 113 Algesiras, 24 Alhaurin, 248 Alicante, 36 Alligator, capture of, 55 and vultures, 259 Alva's, Duchess of, gifts, 29 Amiens, peace of, 22 Ancestors, Waterton's, 4 Andalusia, birds of, 23, 248 Anecdote of a fox-hunt, 219 of hares, 242 showing the necessity of cau- tion as to hearsay evi- dence, 148 "Angel Inn," 547 Angustura, 35 Cayman at, 246 Vultures at, 425 Ant-bear, 173 Ape, 139 Ape's hill in Barbary, 145 Apes at Gibraltar, 24 ... on the Gambia, 160 Ardsley, collier of, 210 Aristocracy, the English, 563 Armstrong, Mr, 100 Arms, Waterton's, 3 Arsenical soap, evil of, 595 Arthur, King, 288 Ash, 507 ... Owl's nest in, 280 "Ass, the dead," 6il Aztecs, paper on the, 605 620 INDEX. Atkinson, Mrs, 10, II Attainments, Waterton's, 133 Audubon, 129, 252, 263, 264, 265, 550, 552, 555, 558, 56o, 568, 585 fables of, 346, 353, 356, 439, 512 August, nest of hedge-sparrows in, 595 Autobiography, Waterton's, I Avenue, old, 120 Axeholme, Isle of, 4 Azara, 251 BABOON, 139 Back-kitchen, event in Mr Storey's, 13 Badgers at Walton, 214 Bagpipe, Northumberland, played at Tudhoe, 13 Badsworth, 575 Balaam's ass, 166 Balberny, Captain, 44 Ball at Stabroek, 40 Balsam of Fierabras, 209 Banks, Sir Joseph, 31, 43, 45, 577 Bantams killed by foxes, 213 Barbaboes, 40, 250 Barima Point, 33 Barrancas, 34 Bartholini, the sculptor, 79 Basle, incident at, 283 Bat, 92, 236 Bathurst, Lord, 40 Battle of Carlisle Bay, 40 Battues, 368 Bay of Filey, 407 Beauty in the animal creation, 465 Bede, the Venerable, 6 Bedingfeld, Sir Henry, 21 Sir John, 31 Sir Richard, 30 Bedingfelds of Oxburgh, 4 Beech, the, 507 Beer, Waterton gives up drinking, 30 Beetles eaten by weasel, 231 Beguinage, 76 Belgium, 72 Bempton, 407 Bench by cross, 121 Benediction of beasts of burden, 85 Bengal tiger, 15, 76 Bennet, Mrs, a fowl, 546 Bentinck, Governor, 39 Bernacle geese, 398 Bess, Queen, 6 Beverley, Bishop of, 136 Bewick, 151, 274 Bill, the rook's, 298 "Biography of Birds," Audubon's, 227, 556, 560 Birching, its effects, 8 Birdmarket at Rome, 83 Birds at the Brand, 270 ... how attracted, 125 ... on Flamborough Head, 407 Birds' eggs, 524 Birdstuffers, anecdote of, 574 Birthday, Waterton's, I Bishop Auckland, II, 12, 15 Bittern, 617 Blacksmith of Tudhoe, 13 of Wintersett, 120 " Black Warrior," hawk called, 416 Blacoe, Rev. Robert, 9 Bleach works, lawsuit about, 570 Blessing, Waterton's, 132 Blight, Miss, 170 Blind chaffinches, 338 "Blind Highland boy," poem of, 16 Blindlane, event in, 443 Blindworm, 432 Blunder made by writers on monkeys, 147 Boa-constrictors, 434 Boatswain, the, 416 Bochra, Jem, 156 "Bois immortel," flowers of the, 351, 506 Bolin, Captain, 28 Bologna, 107 Bolton, incident at, 548 Bone-setter, 113 Bookmaker, letter to a, 523 Boone, 556 Bosch cow, 148 Botzen, 105 Bourbon, grakles in, 593 Bows yewen, 452 Bo wren, Joe, 14, 19, 2O Box-tortoise, Ord on the, 127, 556, 559 Boy sucked by vampires, 234 Boy, two-thumbed, 15 Brand, Captain, 32 Brand, the, 270 Breakfast, Waterton's, 130 Bridlington quay, 407, 413 Briggs, Dr, 593 Bright, Right Hon. John, 548 INDEX. 621 Bristles about birds' mouths, 500 Bristol, school near, 12 Broods of owls, 277 Brough Hall, 14 Brougham, William, 284 Brown, Captain, 556 Browne, Rev. R., 132 Brownsea Castle, 29 Bruce, no Bruges, 74, no, 112 Buckton, 407, 413 Bull, John, and the National Debt, 465 Buffaloes, Italian, 89 Buffon, 143, 239, 274, 377, 412 Buonaparte, Charles, 97, 558 Burial during the plague at Malaga, 26 Buiy, Mr, 103, 269 Bush Cliff, 219 Bushmaster, adventure with a, 55 Bustamante, Father, 26 Butcher's dog kills a fox, 220 Buxton, Sir Fowell, 150 CADIZ, 22, 23, 24, 25 Cadmus, story of, 346 Calais, 112 Calvert's Museum, 440 Camichi, 301 Camoudi snake, 446 Camouni Creek, 434 Campanero, 126 Canada goose, 563, 573 Canino, Prince, 97, 283 Cannibalism, 240, 476 Cannon-ball, story of a, 118 Canova, 610 Cargo, unlucky, 237 Carlisle Bay, battle of, 40 Carmichael, Governor, 37, 40 Carnivora, mode of feeding, 2O2 Carolina duck, 73 Carpue, Mr, 45 Carr, Mr, 42, 223, 242, 243 ... Mrs, 62 Carrion crow, 290, 486, 550, 552 Cascini, the, at Florence, 454 Case Brusciate, 108 Cat, 545 ... Mr Pickerings, 13 ... bite from a, 13 ... and chicken, 346 ... kittened in a wig, 13 Catching geese and swans, 397 Cativolcus, 453 Cayenne, 418 Cayman, Waterton's, ride on, 55 picture of, 126 the, 420 Centaur spectre, 13 Cerastes, 433 Ceuta, 25, 28 Chacrelas, a, 156 Chaffinch, 335 Chapel, Waterton's visit to his, 129 Character, Waterton's, 133 Charles the painter, 12 Charletons of Hazelside, 4 Cheetah, the, 584 Chegoe, the, 447 Cherry-tree on the island, 399 Chess, ape playing, 192 Chevet, holly at, 463 Charity, Waterton's, 17, n<; Chiff-chaff, 57 8 Childhood of Waterton, 8 " Children in the Wood," 345 Chimpanzee, 164, 169 Chloe, a spaniel, 1 1 Chorlton, the innkeeper, n Chrysostomo, story of, 453 Churches, Dutch, 71 Church and State, 459 Claim continued, 5 Claudius Albinus, the glutton, 475 Claws of birds, 501 Cleopatra, 428 Clifford, Father, 18 Climbing, method of, 408 Clock, Sir T. More's, 126 Clontarf, meeting at, 562 Clough, Father, 548 Collingwood, Admiral, 33 Colonna gardens, 561 Colours of insects, 529 of snakes, 431 Commission, Waterton receives a, 33 advantages of a Govern- ment, 41 "Compendium," Mr Atkinson's, 275 Congo expedition, 43 " Consolatrix afflictorum," prayer to, 1 1 1 Controversies, Waterton's, 129 Cooking, Italian, 107 Coots, 500, 577 Cormorant, the, 408, 412, 616 Cornaro, 475 622 INDEX. Cornstack, weasels in a, 231 Corrosive sublimate, solution of, 596 Cost of park wall, 119 Cotinga, 507, 610 Coulacanara snake, 434 Cow-bunting, paper on, 555 Cowie, Rev. Mr, 505 Creation, picture of the, 610 Cressy, a Waterton at, 4 Criticism on the " Wanderings," 57 Cromwell, Oliver, 6, 118 Crook Hall, 1 1 Cross, stone, I, 1 21, 136 Crowther, Mr Joseph, 11$ Crow's nest used by kestrel, 267 Crowing of barndoor fowl, 499 of pheasant, 499 Croxdale Hall, 10 Cuckoo, 317, 343, 555 Custom-house exactions, 56 Cycnus, story of, 405 DANE, story of a, 420 Darlington, Lord, 21, 30 Darning-needle, story of a, 17 Davis, Mr, 68 Death of the King of Denmark, 428 ... of a swan, 406 ... of Waterton, 132 Decay in trees, 507 " Dee," West Indiaman, 420 Defence against wild beasts, 490 Delamain, Lieutenant, 492 Delaware, ornithology of the, 241, 57 1 Delights of ornithology, 281 Demerara, Waterton goes to, 31 Dendermond, 76 Dennis, controversy with the Rev. W. P. B., 599 Derivation of the word alligator , 421 Descent of the cliffs, 409 Despatches, Waterton carries, 33, 40, 41, Devotions, Waterton's, 130, 132 Dialogue between ant-bear and how- ler monkey, 142 between orang-outang and Waterton, 184 Dick, Sir L., 556 Differences between Canada goose and swan, 563 Dillon, Mr, 28 Dinner at Angustura, 35 Dinner parties, Waterton's abstinence from, 46 Dish at a modern feast, 484 Dissections, number of Waterton's, 590 Distinction between harmless and veno- mous snakes, 433 Docking horses' tails, 466 Dog- carts, 205 ... Tribe, 196 ... Roasted, 488 Dole on St Thomas's day, 332, 567 Dominica, 42 Douai, 9 Dovecots and starlings, 327 Dover, mishap at, no Drake, plumage of the, 390 Du Chaillu, 582, 607, 615 Duck, red-crested, 92 Duff, Consul, 23 ... Mrs, 208 ... Tiger, 15 Dunnock, Dicky, 595 Durham, 9, II, 15 Dutch William, 232 Dysentery, 102 Dyver, in EAGLE and vulture, encounter of, 263 ... Owl, 560 Earthquakes at Malaga, 27 Easter- week at Tudhoe, n Easter- Sunday, hare killed on, 242 Edmonstone, the Misses, I, 2, 62, 79, 105, 108, 132 Archibald, 33, 442 Charles, 33, 39, 62, 434 Eel-hook in swan's gullet, 404 Eel-line, herons on, 386 Eggs of cormorant, 414 dovecot pigeon, 365 duck (wild), 387 jackdaw, 314 magpie, 322 owl (tawny), 281 pheasant, 367 ringdove, 358 rook, 309, 312 sea-fowl, 408 Elba, wreck off coast of, 506 El Dorado, 47 Ellis, Alfred, of Belgrave, 270 Elm and fir, junction of, 459 English, boast of the, 129 INDEX. 623 Epitaph, murdered children's, 1 7 Matthew Prior's, 4 Waterton's, 136 Eruption at St Vincent, 250 Errors in ornithology, 251 Esquibo river, 48 Caymans in the, 422 Estate, succession of Waterton to his, 46 Evening in winter, 306 Expedition on the coast of Cayenne, 419 Experiment on chegoe, 449 Windhover, 267 Experiments on vulture by Audubon, 253 ... by American philosophers, 261 FABLE of the cormorant, 412 Fables about monkeys, 188 snakes, 436 Falco harlani, 416 Falcon among ducks, 389 Fall from pear-tree, 1 14 " Fame," ship, 32, 40 Fang of rattlesnake, 552 Fangs of snakes, 428 Fascination of snakes, 431 Father, character of Waterton's, 2 ... Waterton's description of his, 21 Faults of the rook, 592 Feeding of the wigeon, 393 Feet of animals, 141 Ferry-hill, village of, 13, 1 6 Festival of U. S. A., 549 Fever, 101 Field-mice, swarms of, in 1815, 267 Fight between two hares, 242 Magpie and stormcock, Finches, flocks of, 109 Fireflies, bats, and humming birds, 594 Fish caught by owl, 274 Flamborough Head, 213, 407, 413 raven's nest at, 286 Flamingo, nest of the, 159 Fletcher, Mr, 8r Flight of the rook, 311 Flock of Canada geese, 396 Flocks of vultures, 257 Flower-gardens and song-birds, 502 Foals, tailless, 467 Food of animals, 470 Forsett, dancing-master, 15 Fort St Joachim, 48 Fowl, Cochin China, 572 the rumpless, 377 Fowls sucked by vampire, 234 Fox, 211, 480 ... hunting, 21, 216 Fransoni, Cardinal, 101 Funeral, Waterton's, 136 Fungus on trees, 508 Galanthis, 226 Gamekeepers, 225, 296, 304 Gander slain by Waterton, 12 Gateway, breeding-place for owls in, 273 Garter snake, 253 Garth, event in the little, 15 Gay's "Hare and many friends," 3 2 7 Geese, Egyptian, killed by fox, 223 George III.'s life saved by Sir John Bedingfeld, 31 Georgetown, 32 Genoa, owls at, 283 Ghent, 75, 206 Giant, a French, 617 Gibson, Bishop, 15 Gingerbread used as a lure, 8 Glynn, Consul, 24 Goldsmith on a raven, 276, 287 Goose, Canada, the, 395 and Bernacle gander, 399 Gooseander and grouse in ice, 581 Gorgons, 428 Gorilla, 587, 607 Grakles, 592, 309 Granada, 51 Grandfather, Waterton's, 120 Grave, Waterton's, 136 Gray, Captain, 420 Green, Edwin, of Havercroft, 582 Gripes, effect of the, 262 Grotto, the, 12 1 Guiana, wilds of, 47 Guillemot, the, 407 Guineafowl and cock, 582 HAILSTORM, 580 624 INDEX. Hair, Waterton's, 3 Hall, Judge, 556 Hand of monkey, milliner, scullion, and mason, 186 " Hannibal," the, 24 Hanover, House of, 237 Hard-heartedness of a young lady, 278 Hare," song of " the white, 14 Hares, combat betwixt two, 242 Harrison, G., 547 Hawaya, 250 Hawkins' bust of W-aterton, 3 Hedgehog, milk-white, 560 Hedge-sparrow, 340 accentor, 595 Height of vulture's flight, 248 Hen like a cock, 310 Henderson, Audubon at, 551 Henry VIII., 5, 6 Henroost thieves, 225 Herbaceous animals, how they feed, 202 Hercules wanted to cleanse zoology, 227 Heron, the, 123, 380, 385, 565 Hey, John and Ralph, 12 Hey, Mr, 30 Hickson, John, 13 Himsworth village, 592 Hints to ornithologists, 496 Hobbabba Creek, 442 Holland, journey in, 69 Holloway, Sally, 334 Holly, the, 460 Hooting of owls, 275 Horn on sheep's ear, 616 Horse aged forty-two, 582 Horse-racing, evils accompanying, 221 Horse, spectral, 13 Hosier's, Admiral, ghost, 32 Housekeeper, the, at Walton, 8, 272 Hull, 22, 68, 397 Humboldt, 251 Humming-bird, the, 345 Hunt, Neddy, 13 Hunter, Mr P., 251 Hybrid between Egyptian goose and bernacle gander, 400 fictitious, 149 Hydrophobia, 48, 65, 206 IMITATION of birds' voices, 124 " Indian," the ship, 44 Inflammation, 43 " Industry," the brig, 22 Ingredients of wourali, 49 Intemperance, evil of, 102 Interior of Walton Hall, 126 Ireland, state of, 559 Irish, the, 561, 567 Italy, visit to, 44 Italians cursed for vulpicide, 219 Ivy, the, 454 JACAMARS, 124 Jackass sucked by vampires, 234 Jackdaw, the, 312, 408 Jackdaws hatching magpies, 550 Jameson, Professor, 130, 243, 252, 550, 552, 556, 558, 585 Jardine, Sir William, 103, 275 Jay, the, 315, 500 Jesse's " Gleanings in Natural History," Jesuits, the, 18, 44, 47, 84, 91, 590 Jockies and Jarvies, 417 Johnson, Mr, 595 Jones, Captain, 44 picture by, 126 Journey, Waterton's first, to America, 47 second ... 51 third ... 54 fourth ... 57 KAMICHI, 500 Kats, M., 73 Keepers, their rascality, 296 dialogue on magpies, 320 King Charles' bitch, n King of the vultures, 245 Kingfisher, 270, 373 King's Wood, 219 Kirkgate, bat in, 236 Kitchen, dangers from the, 473 Kittiwake, 408, 414 Knife, as a token, 135 Knight, Sir A., 66 LABARRI snake, 34, 433 Laing, Mynheer, 148 Laird, Mr, 28 Lang, Lieutenant, 492 Laocoon, 428 Lark's eggs eaten by Waterton, 9 Lawarri nut-tree, 234 INDEX. 625 Lawson, Sir John, 14, 16 Lawsuit about bleachworks, 569 Lawyers' costume, 138 Leeds, rattlesnakes at, 437 Legion and snake, 427 Leghorn, 97 Le Grand Connetable, 418 Legs, Waterton's, 3 Leibnitz, speaking dog told of by, 276 Lent, preparation for, 593 Letter to a Bookmaker, 523 Norman Moore, 131 F. R. Surtees, 445 " Levina," flag of truce, 33 Lieutenant, Waterton receives a com- mission as a, 33 Lilly of the valley, 503 Linnaeus, 143, 416 Lions, adventure with, 491 Liverpool, 41, 44 Livingstone, Lady, and her sons, 15 Lizards, 92, 109 Lobsters, 581 Loddiges, Mr, 353 Loretto, 109 Loudon, Mr, 553, 561 Mrs, 561 Louisville, Audubon at, 551 Louse, 175 Lupsett Hall, yew at, 452 Lure, civetta used as a, 282 Lyon, Colonel, of St Roque, 24 MACBEAN, Mrs, 99 Magillivray, 558 Mackenzie, 185 Madagascar, 41 Madeira, 563 "Magazine of Natural History," 251 Magdalena, cayman in the, 426 Magpie, 319 Magot, the, 144 Maipourie, 148 Malaga, 22, 23, 25, 28 plague carts at, 247 Mallard, the, 387 Malta, 25 Man, cause of variations in races of, 4 Map, Ynciarte's, 36 Maps of Demerara, 48 Marco, a raven, 286 Mare, with tailless progeny, II, 467 Margate Roads. 22 Maribunta wasp, 466 Marjay tiger-cat, 192, 239 Market, contents of Roman, 325 Marlingspike, 416 Maroons, rewards for capture of, 482 Maroudies, 35 Marriage, Waterton's, 62 Marshall, Dr, 45 Marston Moor, a Waterton at, 4 Martin shot in Guiana, 350 Martinez, 22 Mary, Queen, favour to Watertons, 6 Mary, Queen, Camden's opinion of, 6 Massey, Mr F., 96 Mastiff, English, kept by Chorlton, 1 1 Matatora, 434 Matthew, Father, 103 Matthewman, John, 241 Mattress containing mice, 241 Medea's raven, 289 Mellor, 414 Membrane on vampire's nose, 234 Memoirs, Waterton's object in writing, 2 Memorial to Pope Pius VII. , 44 Men-eaters of Guiana, 482 Metamorphosis of Galanthis, 226 Methley Park once the Watertons' estate, 5, 120 Mexico, 565 Meynell, Mr, lay tutor, his arbitrary conduct, 14 Mibiri Creek, 33, 434 Mice, number killed by barn owl, 274 Middleton, Squire, 548 Migrations of windhover, 269 Mi.Us, Andrew, 16 Millstone and hazel-tree, 464 Mindanao, 280 Mistletoe thrush, 332 Moat, articles found in, 119 Mode of life, Waterton's, 130 Mokeson, Molly, 443 Monjibello, the, 94 Monkeys annoying travellers ; a fable, 154 family of, 137 summary of its divi- sions, 139 formation of, 141 nature of limbs of, 139, 186 no fixed residence, 152 red boiled, 485 with ordinary tail, 139 with prehensile tail, 139 2 R 626 INDEX. Monomotapa, 41 Monsilice, 107 Montagu, errors of, 302 Monteiro, adventure near, 51 Month of Mary, 87 Moore, letter to Mr, 131 Mopsus, 400 Mora tree, 507 Moral qualities of Waterton, 135 More, Sir T., 4, 133 More, Sir T., clock of, 126 Moro, Island of, 483 Morris, Father, 551, 552 Morris, Orpen, 554, 556 Motion of snakes, 431 Motives of Waterton and of Raleigh contrasted, 47 Mother, Water ton's, 2 Mountain-ash berries eaten by storm- cock, 334 Mouse, the Tudhoe, an apparition, 13 Mouth of cayman, 424 Movements of ringdove, 359 Muckdrag's wife and the raven, 288 Mule, story of a, 198 Mummies in Sicily, 89 Murder of ravens, 286 Museums, 531 at the Hague, 70 Hunterian, 54 at the Jardin des Plantes, 575 at Leyden, 70 at Manchester, 533 Peale's, 554 at the Sapienza, 92 at Ushaw, 127 ... at Walton Hall, 126 Music on play-days, 13 Mustard, origin of Waterton's dislike for, 8 Myddleton Lodge, 549 NECROMANCERS, and the raven, 287 Negress of Loango, 159 Negro story of dying, 247 Nelson, 221 Nest of Canada goose and bernacle gander, 399 chaffinch, 337 cormorant, 414 carrion crow, 267, 291 humming-bird, 347, 349 Nest of jackdaw, 313 ... jay, 316 kingfisher, 375 magpie, 321 and heron, 323 oriole, golden, 1 1 7 owl, barn, 273 owl, tawny, 279 raven, 285 ringdove, 358 rook, 312 starling, 328 stormcock, 333 swan, 402 thrush, solitary, 505 titmouse, 280 windhover, 267, 269 Nests of several species in proximity, 304, 330 on the ruin, 391 Nesti, Professor, 79 Newmillerdam, 219 Newton, Serjeant, 15 Nightjar, 124 Nisa, 400 Noctifer, 126 Nondescript, 126 " North Star " Inn, 407 Nose of cayman, 425 ... the vulture's, 261 Nostell Priory, herons at, 384 rat at, 238 rooks at, 307. 312, 330 Note of jackdaw, 314 ... jay, 318 kingfisher, 376 owl, tawny, 278 Nottingham, visit to, 65 Nursery-maid's song about the owl, 272 Nutcrack-night, 14 OAK, 507 Oaks near cross, 2 Oakstump, nests in, 277 Observation on the Demerara estates, 45 Occupations of Joe Bo wren, 15 O'Connell, 128, 562 Odescalchi Palace, 504 Ogdenjohn, 115,277 Oil-gland in birds, 377, 379, 554 Operation on arm, 116 swan, 405 INDEX. 627 Orang-outang, 151, 156, 185, 187 visit of Waterton to, 1 66. 182 Ord, George, 127, 280, 396 ... Miss, 14 Orioles, golden, 117 Ormskirk medicine, 209 Ornithological letter to W. Swainson, 5H Orpheus and Eurydice, 428 O'Shanter, Tarn, 306 Ouarines, 161 Outbuildings at Walton, 64 Ovid, description of the zones, 178 ... thought goose sharper than dog, 196 on the owl, 271 on the yew, 453 Owl, barn, 270 little Italian, 282 tawny, 278 died of want in captivity, 262 Owls in the park, 577 PACKS of hounds, artificial, 202 Paganini, 276 Paille-en-que, 416 Palm-Sunday, adventure on, 10 Pamphili Doria, villa of, 34 Pantheon, bird-market of the, 282, 325 Parasite plants of Guiana, 350 Parima Lake, 47, 48, 51 Park, description of Walton, 119 Parrish, Mr, 554 Passavant, a miser of Basle, 283 Pasche eggs, 1 1 Passenger pigeon, the, 353 Passer solitarius, 504 Pata, 154 Patterson, family of, 14 Peacock in the Exhibition of 1851, 98 " Peacock " sloop of war, 40 Peake, Captain, 40 Peale, Rembrandt's picture of Wash- ington, 551 ... Titian, 241, 553, 559, 571 Peasant and pig, 108 Peel's, Sir Robert, oath, 7 Pegalls, hands in, 482 Pelican feeding its young, 150 Pellets of owl, 274 Peregrine falcon among wild ducks, 389 Peregrine falcon, breeding-place of, 407 Pernambuco, 44, 51 Peters Weneslaus, 610 Pether, dancing-master, 15 Petrefactions at Florence, 80 Phaeton, the, 416, 502 " Pharsalia," Lucan's, 123 Pheasant, the, 366 Phelps, a policeman, 65 Philip, a mule, 198 Philippe, Louis, 128 Phlebotomy, 42 Pica Marina, 326 Pickering, Timothy, 13, 14, Picnic parties at Walton, 122 Picture of Waterton on the cayman, 126 Pigeon, the dovecot, 362 Pigeon-cot and weasel, 231 Pigeons and owl, 275 Pig-killing in Rome, 84 Pig-stye, Waterton concealed in a, 19 Pigtails, 138 Pike caught by fox, 214 Pilkington, Sir William, 120, 229, 568 Pillars of Hercules, 146 Pizarro, 47 Poachers, 368 Poachers, magpies give warning of, 333 Poem on the loss of the Pollux," 101 Poets on the owl, 271 Polecat, 227, 228, 341, 468 Politics, Waterton's, 61, 128 " Pollux," the, 94 Polyphemus, 187 Pond at Tudhoe, 13 Pongoe, the, 158 Pontefract Castle, a Waterton governor of, 4 recorder of, 121 Poplar-tree, 9, 123 Portolongoni, 97 Portsmouth, 32 Power, Mr, 26 Power of vegetation, 464 Pouch supposed in rook, 302 Poultry attacked by weasel, 230 Precautions to save ducklings from crows, 294 Prehensile tail, nature of, 140 Preserving insects, method of, 527 628 INDEX. Price of a humming-bird's skin, 348 Primrose, the, 503 Problems in Natural History, 187, 301 Productiveness of Walton Park, 336 Propaganda, the, 55 Psalmist, the, 504 Puffin, the, 407 Pythoness, the, 613 QUADRUPEDS, mode of preserving, 535 Quails in Rome, no Qualifications of an observer, 46 Quao, 301 Quasshi, Daddy, 245, 282, 422, 424, 571 Quata, 191 Quinary system, 302 Quinine, 48 RABBIT killed by weasel, 229 Racers, 441 Raincliff, the, 414 Raleigh, Sir W., 47 Ram of Apulia, 88 Raquedel, M., saves Waterton's life, Rat, the brown or gray, 237 English, 238, 242 Hanoverian, 176, 573 Rats expelled from Walton, 64 ... owl eats, 274 ... travels of, 555 ... weasel eats, 231 Rattens, poem on, 177 Rattlesnake, fable about. 586 Rattlesnakes at Leeds, 437 Raven, the, 285, 407 and young ducks, 390 Ravens at Aix-la-Chapelle, 77 Razorbills, the, 407 Reading, Waterton's, 130 Reason and instinct in birds, 594 human, not canine, IQ'J Re-capitulation about monkeys, 188 Receipt for rat poison, 240 Recollections of Tudhoe, 9 Redbreasts eaten in Rome, 344 Reformation, the, 5 Religion, Waterton's, 60, 136 Rennie, Professor, his errors, 299 Repeal, Waterton on, 128 Reply to reviewer, 190 Revolution brought rats to England, 2 37 Richard II. kept by a Waterton, 4 Richmond, Duke of, 209 Rimini, 107 Ringdove, the, 407 Rio Branco, 39, 48 ... Negro, 48 Robin, the, 340 Rockpigeon, the, 407 Roller, the, 324 Roman States, hunting in the, 218 Rome, 68, 82 Rook, the, 305 Letter to Mr Hog on, 591 Rooks bringing up carrion crows, 550 ... caged, 310 Rookery robbed by tailors, 592 Room, Waterton's, 127 Roosting of rooks, 307 Ross, Governor, 33, 36 Ross, Henry, bust of Waterton by, 3 Rough, President, 442 Route, Waterton's, 48 Ruin, barn owls in, 273 ... wild ducks' nest on, 391 Ryroyd Bank, the, 120, 123 SACAWINKI, 141, 146 Sacopan, 34 Saint Angelo, Castle of, climbed by Waterton, 44 Catharine of Alexandria, picture of, 63 Domingo, story of the war in, 160 ... Edward the Confessor, 6 Francis of Assissium, 593 ...^ Xavier, 130,483 Januarius' blood, 82 ... Peter's pot, 75 ... Thomas' day, 573, 567 isle of, 51 of Canterbury, 6 ... Vincent, Isle of, 249 Salem, adventure near, 241 Salvin, Bryan, a dull lad, 10 ... Mr, 20 ... Squire, 14 Sandal Church, 120 Sandal Magna, church dismantled, and why, 6 Three houses, 241 Santa Casa, 109 Saumarez, Sir J., 25 Savannas, 182 Scarthingwell, herons at, 384 INDEX. 629 Scene in an Indian's hut, 449 Scent, acuteness of, in quadrupeds, 244 Schomburgk, Sir R., 48 School, Waterton sent to, 89 Scotchman sucked by vampire, 235 Scott, Father, 45 Screamer, horned, 34 Screeching of owls, 275 Serpent charmers, 429 Serpents of Guiana, 434 Service tree frequented by stormcock, Seychelles Islands, 41 Shag, the, 408 Sheep, curious horn on, 615 Sheldrake attacked by weasel, 230 Shepherd, Rev. Joseph, a correct dis- ciplinarian, 9 Shepherds, Spanish, 198 Shipwreck, 94 Shoemaker, story of, 106 Shoes, Waterton's gift of his, 135 Shooting of the rooks, 307 Sibson, Dr, 210 Sicily, 88 Simpson, James, 334 Sisters-in-law, I, 2 Sister, Waterton's, 8 Size of cayman, 423 Skye-terrier, story about, 208 Sleep, Waterton's last, 131 Sloth, habits of, 147, 174, 468 Smell of cormorant's nest, 465 Snails boiled, 103 Snakes, 427 Snottle berries, 453 Snowdrops, 503 Soaring of birds of prey, 248 Some account of the writer of the fol- lowing essays by himself, 2 Song, Low Thompson's, 14 ... of chaffinch, 338 ... of dying swan, 405 Songs of birds unexplained, 331 Southey, snail combats told of by, 12 Sparrow-hawk, 267 ... and starlings, 330 Sparrow, solitary, 304 Speaton, 407 Species of fox, 214 Spider's web used by chaffinch and humming-bird, 337 Spring-gun, fox killed by, 224 Squirrel, its habits, 172 Stabroek, 32 Starling's nest robbed by weasel, 232 Starling, story of the, 166 Starling, the, 327, 407, 614 Steadman, Captain, 482 Sterne, notes on, 611 Sterne's starling, 327 Stoats, family of, 204 Stob, Andrew Mill's, its healing virtues and history, 16 Stockeld Park, 547 Stonyhurst, fox at, 212 birds' nesting adventures at, 19 Waterton goes to, 18 Waterton leaves, 21 Storey, Mr, fate of one of his wigs, 1 1 his frugality, 14 his inopportune appearance and its result, 10 Storey, Rev. A., Waterton's school- master, 9 Storks in Holland, 70 Stormcock, the, 331, 568 Story of tame fox, 480 Waterton's father, 386 Strickland, Mr Arthur, 127, 238 Stuart, Charley, 7, 118 Stuffing, directions for, 595 letters on, 598 Style, Waterton's, 134 Subscriptions, 135 Superstitions as to dumb animals, 278 of savages, 50 Surtees, Mr F. R., 444 Swainson, 130, 421, 552, 558, 568 notice of Au dubon, 355 Swamp for plovers, 120 Swans, wild, 403 Swan, the domestic, 401 Swift, 173 Swifts, mode of catching, 86 Swinburnes of Capheaton, 4 Swine, wild of Guiana, 477 Sycamore, 507 Sycamores on the island, 509 Sydney Smith's review, 58 Sylvester, 121 TAILOR, the village, 14 Tailors, story of festive, 592 Tapir, story about, 148 630 INDEX. Tarbet, Mr, 235 Taxidermy, Waterton's system of, 53 Taylor, assistant carpenter, 14 ... Mr, his trash, 440, 555 Teal chased by falcon, 389 Temperance, advantages of, 102 Testimonials, 135 Tetanus, 48 Tether, Billy, 547 Texas, 566 Thomas, the bishop's servant, 15 Thompson, Lawrence, alias Low, 14 Thorns for nightingales, 353 Thrush, the solitary, 506 Thunderstorm at Walton, 575 Toad, 466 Tom-cat, 13, 176 and chicken, 571 Torlonia, Prince, 283 Tortoises, fresh-water, 92 Toucan, 501, 507, 572 Tower for starlings, 329 Traill, Dr, 441 Transactions of learned societies, 129 Transfusion practised by the ancients, 289 Treatment, medical, 43 Trees of Guiana, 181 Trees, hollow, 279 Trent, 103 Trim, Corporal, 154 Tropic bird, 416 Tub, Waterton's voyage in a, 1 6 Tudhoe, career of, 18 Tudhoe old hall, 13, 14 Tudhoe, ornithology of, 16 recollections of, 9 spectres of, 13 village, its curiosities, 10 Tune, " The Lass of Richmond Hill," 15 ... " The Shamrock," 276 ... " The Storm," 271 Turkey, American, 1 76 ... buried by fox, 212 buzzard, 251 cock, death of, from grief, 578 UNCLES, Waterton's, 22 death of, 26, 28 Ushaw College, condition of, 18 museum at, 125 Waterton a founder of, II VAILLANT, 193 Vampire, 1 73, 238 Vandenheuvil, Mrs, 239 Vangordon, the blacksmith, 437 Van Spek, exploit of, 72 Venice, 106 Vicar, the, a hunting, 217 Vigo, story of brig bound for, 22 Viper, 432 Virgil on the owl, 271 Virginia, fowls of, 377 Viscount de Croezer, 117 Vociferousness of birds at dawn and nightfall, 497 Vomit, black, at Malaga, 25 Vulture-aura of Guiana, 245 Vulture, common, of West Indies, 244 of Andalusia, 245 encounter with eagle, 263 faculty of scent in, 243 Vulture's nose, 261 WAAKENHAM, island of, 424 Wagtails, 500, 573 Wakefield, 2 Walcott, Mr, 234 Wall, park, 119 Walton Hall, lake around, 2 description of, 126 seat of Watertons for centuries, 4 Walton Park, cross in, 2 description of, 119 "Wanderings," the, 40, 57, 126, 524 Waratilla Creek, 234 War in United States, 128 Watch, story of Waterton's, 39 Waterfowl, show of, at Walton, 123 Waterhouse Hawkins' extinct animals, 1 68 Waterton, Anne, I, 2 Charles, his birth, I busts of, 3 his childhood, 8 dislike of mustard, 9 personal descrip- tion of, 3 his sister, 8 his smile, 4 sent to school, 8, 9 Edmund, 94 George, 17 Sir Hugh, 4 INDEX. 631 Waterton, Sir Robert, 4 Thomas, I, 46 Thomas, high- sheriff of York, 6 Watertons formerly settled in Lincoln- shire, 4 Weasel, the, 226 Webbed feet, 375 Weld's, Mr, gift to the Jesuits, 18 Wen, Taylor's, 14 Whin flowers used as a dye, 1 1 Whip snakes, 433 " White Horse," the, II White negro, 156 Wigeon, the, 392, 398 Wiggin, powers of branches of, 334 Wighton, Mr, 103 Wigs, Mr Storey's, 9 Wild duck, simile as to, 124 Wildfowl, 616 Wilkinson, William, saw a spectre, 13 William, Dutch, and his penal laws, 6 Williams, Captain, 40 ... Dr, 65 Wilson, 251, 443 Windhover, 266, 330 Wine, Waterton's promise as to, 19 Wintersett, the blacksmith of, 120 Wise man, or wizard, in Yorkshire re- sorted to, 322 Wolves, 203, 471 Woman, horned, 301 Womb well's menagerie, 164, 169 Woodbine, growth of the, 457 Woodcraft, Waterton's, 122 W T oodhouse, Captain, 492 Woodpecker, green, 125 red-headed, 616 Woodpeckers, 501 Wooley Edge, 219 Wooley Park, herons at, 384 Wordworth, Mr, of Walton, 231 Wordsworth's poems referred to, 8, 16 Works, merit of Waterton's, 134 Wourali poison, 47, 210 preparation of, 49 experiments with, at Notting- ham, 66 Wren, the, 340 Wright & Co., 559 XAVIER, St Francis, 130, 483 YANKEE captain's saying, 428 Yew-tree, the, 450 Ynciarte, Don F. de, 35, 425 York, Walton in the county of, 2 Waterton's grandfather impri- soned at, 6 Young of cormorant, 414 swan, 405 ZONES, 178 Zone, torrid, 179 Zoology, confusion of, 137 PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY EDINBURGH AND LONDON RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 202 Moin Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Bass-"-"--. 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