pended, and passes his life in suspense—| suck men, and the smaller birds. Mr. like a young clergyman distantly re- W. saw some fowls which had been lated to a bishop. Strings of ants sucked the night before, and they were may be observed, says our good travel- scarcely able to walk. ler, a mile long, each carrying in its mouth a green leaf the size of a sixpence! he does not say whether this is a loyal procession, like Oak-apple Day, or for what purpose these leaves are carried; but it appears, while they are carrying the leaves, the three sorts of ant-bears are busy in eating them. The habits of the largest of these three animals are curious, and to us new. We recommend the account to the attention of the reader. "Some years ago I went to the river Paumaron with a Scotch gentleman, by name Tarbet. We hung our hammocks in the thatched loft of a planter's house. Next morning I heard this gentleman muttering in his hammock, and now and then letting fall an imprecation or two, just about the time he ought to have been saying his morning prayers. What is the matter, Sir?' said I, softly; 'is anything amiss?'— What's the matter?' answered he, surlily; why the vampires have been sucking me to death.' As soon as there was light enough, I went to his hammock, and saw it much stained with blood. "There,' said he, thrusting his foot out of the hammock. 'see how these infernal imps have been drawing my life's blood.' On examining his foot, I found the vampire had tapped his great toe: there was a wound somewhat less than that made by a leech; the blood was still oozing from it; I conjectured he might have lost from ten to twelve ounces of blood. Whilst examining it, I think I put him into a worse humour by remarking that an European surgeon would not have "He is chiefly found in the inmost recesses of the forest, and seems partial to the low and swampy parts near creeks where the Troely tree grows. There he goes up and down in quest of ants, of which there is never the least scarcity; so that he soon obtains a sufficient supply of food, with very little trouble. He cannot travel fast; man is superior to him in speed. Without swiftness to enable him to escape from his enemies, without teeth, the possession of which would assist him in selfdefence, and without the power of burrow-been so generous as to have blooded him ing in the ground, by which he might conceal himself from his pursuers, he still is capable of ranging through these wilds in perfect safety; nor does he fear the fatal pressure of the serpent's fold, or the teeth of the famished jaguar. Nature has formed his fore legs wonderfully thick, and strong, without making a charge. He looked up in my face, but did not say a word: I saw he was of opinion that I had better have spared this piece of ill-timed levity."(pp. 176, 177.) The story which follows this account is vulgar, unworthy of Mr. Waterton, and should have been omitted. and muscular, and armed his feet with three tremendous sharp and crooked claws. Whenever he seizes an animal with these Every animal has his enemies. The formidable weapons, he hugs it close to his land tortoise has two enemies-man. body, and keeps it there till it dies through and the boa constrictor. The natural pressure, or through want of food. Nor defence of the tortoise is to draw himdoes the ant-bear, in the meantime, suffer self up in his shell, and to remain much from loss of aliment, as it is a wellknown fact that he can go longer without quiet. In this state, the tiger, however food than perhaps any other animal, except the land tortoise. His skin is of a texture that perfectly resists the bite of a dog; his hinder parts are protected by thick and shaggy hair, while his immense tail is large enough to cover his whole body. "The Indians have a great dread of coming in contact with the ant-bear; and after disabling him in the chase, never think of approaching him till he be quite dead."(pp. 171, 172.) The vampire measures inches from wing to wing. two species, large and small. about 26 There are The large famished, can do nothing with him, for the shell is too strong for the stroke of his paw. Man, however, takes him home and roasts him-and the boa constrictor swallows him whole, shell and all, and consumes him slowly in the interior, as the Court of Chancery does a great estate. The danger seems to be much less with snakes and wild beasts, if you conduct yourself like a gentleman, and are not abruptly intrusive. If you will pass on gently, you may walk unhurt within a yard of the Labairi snake, whe would put you to death if you rushed upon him. The taguan knocks you down with a blow of his paw, if suddenly interrupted, but will run away, if you will give him time to do so. In short, most animals look upon man as a very ugly customer; and, unless sorely pressed for food, or from fear of their own safety, are not fond of attacking him. Mr. Waterton, though much given to sentiment, made a Labairi snake bite itself, but no bad consequences ensued -nor would any bad consequences ensue, if a court-martial were to order a sinful soldier to give himself a thousand lashes. It is barely possible that the snake had some faint idea whom and what he was biting. one knows that the large snake of tropical climates throws himself upon his prey, twists the folds of his body round the victim, presses him to death, and then eats him. Mr. Waterton wanted a large snake for the sake of his skin; and it occurred to him, that the success of this sort of combat depended upon who began first, and that if he could contrive to fling himself upon the snake, he was just as likely to send the snake to the British Museum, as the snake, if allowed the advantage of prior occupation, was to eat him up. The opportunities which Yorkshire squires have of combating with the boa constrictor are so few, that Mr. Waterton must be allowed to tell his own story in his own manner. Insects are the curse of tropical climates. The bête rouge lays the foundation of a tremendous ulcer. In a moment you are covered with ticks. Chigoes bury themselves in your flesh, and hatch a large colony of young chigoes in a few hours. They will not live together, but every chigoe sets up a separate ulcer, and has his own private portion of pus. Flies get entry into your mouth, into your eyes, into your nose; you eat flies, drink flies, and breathe flies. Lizards, cockroaches, and snakes, get into the bed; ants eat up the books; scorpions sting you on the foot. Everything bites, stings, or "On pinning him to the ground with the bruises; every second of your exist- lance, he gave a tremendous loud hiss, and ence you are wounded by some piece the little dog ran away, howling as he went. of animal life that nobody has ever sticks flying on all sides, and each party We had a sharp fray in the den, the rotten seen before, except Swammerdam and struggling for superiority. I called out to Meriam. An insect with eleven legs the second negro to throw himself upon is swimming in your teacup, a nonde-me, as I found I was not heavy enough, script with nine wings is struggling in He did so, and the additional weight was of the small beer, or a caterpillar with great service. I had now got firm hold of several dozen eyes in his belly is his tail; and after a violent struggle or two, hastening over the bread and butter! he gave in, finding himself overpowered. All nature is alive, and seems to be while the first negro continued to hold the This was the moment to secure him. So, gathering all her entomological hosts lance firm to the ground, and the other was to eat you up, as you are standing, out helping me, I contrived to unloose my of your coat, waistcoat, and breeches. braces, and with them tied up the snake's Such are the tropics. All this recon- mouth. ciles us to our dews, fogs, vapours, and drizzle-to our apothecaries rushing about with gargles and tinctures-to our old, British, constitutional coughs, Sore throats, and swelled faces. moving our arms or heads, in order to pre- We come now to the counterpart of St. George and the Dragon. Every VOL. II. "The snake, now finding himself in an unpleasant situation, tried to better him self, and set resolutely to work, but we him twist himself round the shaft of the overpowered him. We contrived to make lance, and then prepared to convey him out of the forest. I stood at his head, and held it firm under my arm, one negro supported G the belly, and the other the tail. In this trescence and flavour of death. The order we began to move slowly towards following is a characteristic specimen home, and reached it after resting ten of the little inconveniences to which times; for the snake was too heavy for us travellers are liable, who sleep on the to support him without stopping to recruit our strength. As we proceeded onwards feather-beds of the forest. To see a with him, he fought hard for freedom, but rat in a room in Europe insures a night it was all in vain."-(pp. 202-204.) of horror. Everything is by compa. rison. One of these combats we should have thought sufficient for glory, and for the interests of the British Museum. But Hercules killed two snakes, and Mr. Waterton would not be content with less. "There was a path where timber had formerly been dragged along. Here I observed a young coulacanara, ten feet long, slowly moving onwards; I saw he was not thick enough to break my arm, in case he got twisted round it. There was not a moment to be lost. I laid hold of his tail with the left hand, one knee being on the ground; with the right I took off my hat, and held it as you would hold a shield for defence. "The snake instantly turned, and came on at me, with his head about a yard from the ground, as if to ask me what business I had to take liberties with his tail. I let him come, hissing and open-mouthed, within two feet of my face, and then, with all the force I was master of, I drove my fist, shielded by my hat, full in his jaws. He was stunned and confounded by the blow, and ere he could recover himself, I had seized his throat with both hands, in such a position that he could not bite me; I then allowed him to coil himself round my body, and marched off with him as my lawful prize. He pressed me hard, but not alarmingly so."-(pp. 206, 207.) "About midnight, as I was lying awake and in great pain, I heard the Indians say, Massa, massa, you no hear tiger?' I lis tened attentively, and heard the softly sounding tread of his feet as he approached us. The moon had gone down; but every now and then we could get a glance of him by the light of our fire: he was the jaguar, for I could see the spots on his body. Had I wished to have fired at him, I was not able to take a sure aim, for I was in such pain that I could not turn myself in my hammock. The Indian would have fired, but I would not allow him to do so, as I wanted to see a little more of our new visitor; for it is not every day or night that the traveller is favoured with an un disturbed sight of the jaguar in his own forest. "Whenever the fire got low, the jaguar came a little nearer, and when the Indian renewed it, he retired abruptly; sometimes he would come within twenty yards, and then we had a view of him, sitting on his hind legs like a dog; sometimes he moved slowly to and fro, and at other times we could hear him mend his pace, as if impatient. At last the Indian, not relishing the idea of having such company in the neighbourhood, could contain himself no longer, and set up a most tremendous yell. The jaguar bounded off like a race-horse, and returned no more; it appeared by the print of his feet the next morning, that he was a full-grown jaguar."-(pp. 212, 213.) We have seen Mr. Waterton fling himself upon a snake; we shall now When the body of the large snake began to smell, the vultures immediately arrived. The king of the vultures first gorged himself, and then retired to a large tree while his sub-mount him upon a crocodile, underjects consumed the remainder. It does taking that this shall be the last of his not appear that there was any favour- feats exhibited to the reader. He had itism. When the king was full, all the baited for a cayman or crocodile, the mob vultures ate alike; neither could hook was swallowed, and the object Mr. Waterton perceive that there was was to pull the animal up and to seany division into Catholic and Protes- cure him. If you pull him up," say tant vultures, or that the majority of the Indians, " as soon as he sees you on the flock thought it essentially vultur- the brink of the river, he will run at ish to exclude one third of their num-you and destroy you." Never mind." bers from the blood and entrails. The says our traveller, "pull away, and vulture, it is remarkable, never eats leave the rest to me." And accordlive animals. He seems to abhor every-ingly he places himself upor the shore, thing which has not the relish of pu- with the mast of the canoe in his hand, ready to force it down the throat of the crocodile, as soon as he makes his appearance. "By the time the cayman was within two yards of me, I saw he was in a state of fear and perturbation; I instantly dropped the mast, sprung up, and jumped on his back, turning half round as I vaulted, so that I gained my seat with my face in a right position. I immediately seized his fore legs, and, by main force, twisted them on his back; thus they served me for a bridle. "He now seemed to have recovered from his surprise, and probably fancying himself in hostile company, he began to plunge furiously, and lashed the sand with his long and powerful tail. I was out of reach of the strokes of it, by being near his head. He continued to plunge and strike, and made my seat very uncomfortable. It must have been a fine sight for an unoccupied spec tator. "The people roared out in triumph, and were so vociferous, that it was some time before they heard me tell them to pull me and my beast of burden farther in land. I was apprehensive the rope might break, and then there would have been every chance of going down to the regions under water with the cayman. That would have been more perilous than Arion's marine morning ride: 'Delphini insidens, vada cærula sulcat Arion.' "The people now dragged us above forty yards on the sand: it was the first and last time I was ever on a cayman's back. Should it be asked, how I managed to keep my seat, I would answer-I hunted some years with Lord Darlington's foxhounds.”—(pp. 231, 232.) At Liverpool, the Our Eboracic traveller had now been nearly eleven months in the desert, and not in vain. Shall we express our doubts, or shall we confidently state at once the immense wealth he had acquired? - a prodigious variety of insects, two hundred and thirty birds, ten land-tortoises, five armadillas, two large serpents, a sloth, an ant-bear, and a cayman. Custom-house officers, men ignorant of Linnæus, got hold of his collection, detained it six weeks, and, in spite of remonstrances to the Treasury, he was forced to pay very high duties. This is really perfectly absurd; that a man of science cannot bring a pickled armadilla, for a collection of natural history, without paying a tax for it. This surely must have happened in the dark days of Nicolas. We cannot doubt but that such paltry exactions have been swept away by the manly and liberal policy of Robinson and Huskisson. That a great people should compel an individual to make them a payment before he can be permitted to land a stuffed snake upon their shores, is, of all the paltry Custom-house robberies we ever heard of, the most mean and contemptible - but Major rerum, ordo nascitur. - The fourth journey of Mr. Waterton is to the United States. It is pleasantly written; but our author does not appear as much at home among men as among beasts. Shooting, stuffing, and pursuing are his occupations. He is lost in places where there are bushes, snakes, nor Indians - but he is full of good and amiable feeling wherever he goes. We cannot avoid introducing the following passage : — - no "The steam-boat from Quebec to Montreal had above five hundred Irish emi The Yorkshire gentlemen have long been famous for their equestrian skill; but Mr. Waterton is the first among them of whom it could be said that he has a fine hand upon a crocodile. This accursed animal, so ridden by Mr. Waterton, is the scourge and terror of all the large rivers in South America near the Line. Their bold-grants on board. They were going they ness is such, that a cayman has sometimes come out of the Oroonoque, at Angustura, near the public walks where the people were assembled, seized a full-grown man, as big as Sir William Curtis after dinner, and hur. ried him into the bed of the river for his food. The governor of Angustura witnessed this circumstance himself. hardly knew whither,' far away from dear Ireland. It made one's heart ache to see them all huddled together, without any ex. pectation of ever revisiting their native soil. We feared that the sorrow of leaving home for ever, the miserable accommodations on board the ship which had brought them away, and the tossing of the angry ocean, in dered them callous to good behaviour. But a long and dreary voyage, would have renit was quite otherwise. They conducted 84 themselves with great propriety. Every many odd things-things utterly unAmerican on board seemed to feel for them. known to the dwellers in Hackney and And then, they were so full of wretched- Highgate. We do not want to rein ness. Need and oppression stared within their eyes. Upon their backs hung ragged up Mr. Waterton too tightly-because misery. The world was not their friend. We are convinced he goes best with his But a little less of apo'Poor dear Ireland,' exclaimed an aged fe read free. male, as I was talking to her, 'I shall never see it any more!'"-(pp. 259, 260.) And thus it is in every region of the earth! There is no country where an Englishman can set his foot, that he does not meet these miserable victims of English cruelty and oppression banished from their country by the stupidity, bigotry, and meanness of the English people, who trample on their liberty and conscience, because each man is afraid, in another reign, of being out of favour, and losing his share in the spoil. We are always glad to see America praised (slavery excepted). And yet there is still, we fear, a party in this country, who are glad to pay their court to the timid and the feeble, by sneering at this great spectacle of human happiness. We never think of it without considering it as a great lesson to the people of England, to look into their own affairs, to watch and suspect their rulers, and not to be defrauded of happiness and money by pompous names, and false pretences. strophe, and some faint suspicion of his THERE is nothing more amusing in the spectacles of the present day, than to see the Sir John's and Sir Thomas's of the House of Commons struck aghast by the useful science and wise "Our western brother is in possession of novelties of Mr. Huskisson and the a country replete with everything that can Chancellor of the Exchequer. Treacontribute to the happiness and comfort of son, Disaffection, Atheism, Republicmankind. His code of laws, purified by ex-anism, and Socinianism-the great perience and common sense, has fully answered the expectations of the public. By guns in the Noodle's park of artillery acting up to the true spirit of this code, he has reaped immense advantages from it, His advancement, as a nation, has been rapid beyond all calculation; and, young as he is, it may be remarked, without any impropriety, that he is now actually reading a salutary lesson to the rest of the civilised world." (p. 278.) Now, what shall we say, after all, of Mr. Waterton ? That he has spent a great part of his life in wandering in the wild scenes he describes, and that he describes them with entertaining zeal and real feeling. His stories draw largely sometimes on our faith; but a man who lives in the woods of Cayenne must do many odd things, and see they cannot bring to bear upon these gentlemen. Even to charge with a regiment of ancestors is not quite so efficacious as it used to be; and all that remains, therefore, is to rail against Peter M'Culloch and Political Economy ! In the meantime, day after day, down goes one piece of nonsense or another. The most approved trash, and the most trusty clamours, are found to be utterly powerless. Twopenny taunts and trumpery truisms have lost their destructive omnipotence; and the exhausted common-placemen, and the afflicted fool, moan over the ashes of Imbecility, and strew flowers on the |