Wanderings in South America
Waterton, Charles, 1782-1865
English
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WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA
By CHARLES WATERTON
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
I offer this book of "Wanderings" with a hesitating hand. It has little
merit, and must make its way through the world as well as it can. It will
receive many a jostle as it goes along, and perhaps is destined to add one
more to the number of slain in the field of modern criticism. But if it
fall, it may still, in death, be useful to me; for should some accidental
rover take it up and, in turning over its pages, imbibe the idea of going
out to explore Guiana in order to give the world an enlarged description of
that noble country, I shall say, "fortem ad fortia misi," and demand the
armour; that is, I shall lay claim to a certain portion of the honours he
will receive, upon the plea that I was the first mover of his discoveries;
for, as Ulysses sent Achilles to Troy, so I sent him to Guiana. I intended
to have written much more at length; but days and months and years have
passed away, and nothing has been done. Thinking it very probable that I
shall never have patience enough to sit down and write a full account of
all I saw and examined in those remote wilds, I give up the intention of
doing so, and send forth this account of my "Wanderings" just as it was
written at the time.
If critics are displeased with it in its present form, I beg to observe
that it is not totally devoid of interest, and that it contains something
useful. Several of the unfortunate gentlemen who went out to explore the
Congo were thankful for the instructions they found in it; and Sir Joseph
Banks, on sending back the journal, said in his letter: "I return your
journal with abundant thanks for the very instructive lesson you have
favoured us with this morning, which far excelled, in real utility,
everything I have hitherto seen." And in another letter he says: "I hear
with particular pleasure your intention of resuming your interesting
travels, to which natural history has already been so much indebted." And
again: "I am sorry you did not deposit some part of your last harvest of
birds in the British Museum, that your name might become familiar to
naturalists and your unrivalled skill in preserving birds be made known to
the public." And again: "You certainly have talents to set forth a book
which will improve and extend materially the bounds of natural science."
Sir Joseph never read the third adventure. Whilst I was engaged in it,
death robbed England of one of her most valuable subjects and deprived the
Royal Society of its brightest ornament.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
FIRST JOURNEY
REMARKS
SECOND JOURNEY
THIRD JOURNEY
FOURTH JOURNEY
ON PRESERVING BIRDS FOR CABINETS OF NATURAL HISTORY
GLOSSARY
INDEX
WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA
FIRST JOURNEY
----nec herba, nec latens in asperis
Radix fefellit me locis.
In the month of April 1812 I left the town of Stabroek to travel through
the wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, a part of _ci-devant_ Dutch
Guiana, in South America.
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