Chapter XII: Part 12

Here fountains once played in marble basins, and choice flowers bloomed; but now it presented a scene of melancholy desolation. Our dinner was spread on the floor in Lady Hester's favourite apartment; her deathbed was our sideboard, her furniture our fuel; her name our conversation. Lady Hester Stanhope was niece to Mr. Pitt, and seems to have possessed or acquired something of his indomitable energy and proud self-reliance during the time that she presided over his household. Soon after his death she left England. For some time she was at Constantinople, where her magnificence and near alliance to the great minister gained her considerable influence. Afterwards she passed into Syria.

Many of the people of that country, excited by the achievements of Sir Sidney Smith, looked on her as a princess who had come to prepare the way for the expected conquest of their land by the English. Her influence increased through the prestige created by her wealth and magnificence, as well as by her imperious character and dauntless bravery. She believed in magic, astrology, and, incredible as it may appear, in her own divine mission.

She had two mares which were held sacred by herself and her attendants. One was singularly marked by a natural saddle. The animal was never mounted, but reserved for some divinity whom she was to accompany on his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The other was retained for her own "mount" on the same remarkable occasion.

It is said that she was crowned Queen of the East by 50,000 Arabs, at Palmyra. Lady Hester certainly exercised despotic power in her neighbourhood on the mountain. Mehemet Ali could make nothing of her. She annihilated a village for disobedience, and burned a mountain chalet, with all its inhabitants, on account of the murder of two Frenchmen who were travelling under the protection of her firman.

_VII.--Mount Hermon_

One morning, before daylight, I set out for the summit of Hermon, called in Arabic, Djebel Sheikh, the "Chief of the Mountains." This is the highest point of Syria, the last of the Anti-Lebanon range. We rode through some rugged valleys and tracts of vineyards, and, leaving our horses at one of the sheds in the latter, began the steep and laborious ascent. I have climbed Snowdon, Vesuvius, Epomeo, and many others, but this was the heaviest work of all. After six hours of toil we stood on the summit, and perhaps the world does not afford a more magnificent view than we then beheld.

We looked down from the ancient Hill of Hermon over the land of Israel. There gleamed the bright blue Sea of Galilee, and nearer was Lake Hooly, with Banias, the ancient Dan, on its banks. The vast and varied plain, on which lay mapped a thousand places familiar to the memory, was bounded on the right by the Mediterranean, whose purple waters whitened round Sidon, Tyre, and the distant Promontorium Album, over which just appeared the summit of Mount Carmel. On the left of the plain a range of hills divided the Hauran from Samaria. Further on, towards the Eastern horizon, spread the plain of Damascus, and the desert towards Palmyra.

To the north, the wide and fertile valley of Bekaa lay between the two great chains of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon; the latter of whose varied hills and glens, speckled with forests and villages, lay beneath my feet. Nothing but lakes were wanting to the valleys, nothing but heather to the mountains. We caught some goats after a hard chase, and, milking them on the snow, drank eagerly from this novel dairy.

Soon afterwards we discovered a little fountain gushing from a snowy hill, and only those who have climbed a mountain 9,000 feet high, under a Syrian sun, can appreciate the luxury of such a draught as that cool, bubbling rill afforded.

_VIII.--Damascus: The World's Oldest City_

Emerging from the savage gorges of Anti-Lebanon, we entered a wide, disheartening plain, bounded by an amphitheatre of dreary mountains. Our horses had had no water for twenty-four hours, and we had had no refreshment of any kind for twenty. After two hours of more hard riding I came to another range of mountains, from beyond which opened the view of Damascus, from which the Prophet abstained as too delicious for a believer's gaze. It is said that after many days of toilsome travel, when he beheld this city thus lying at his feet, he exclaimed, "But one paradise is allowed to man; I will not take mine in this world;" and so he turned his horse's head from Damascus and pitched his tent in the desert.

For miles around us lay the dead desert, whose sands seemed to quiver under the shower of sunbeams; far away to the south and east it spread like a boundless ocean; but there, beneath our feet, lay such an island of verdure as nowhere else perhaps exists. Mass upon mass of dark, delicious foliage rolled like waves among garden tracts of brilliant emerald green. Here and there the clustering blossoms of the orange or the nectarine lay like foam upon that verdant sea. Minarets, white as ivory, shot up their fairy towers among the groves; and purple mosque-domes, tipped with the golden crescent, gave the only sign that a city lay bowered beneath those rich plantations.

One hour's gallop brought me to the suburban gates of Mezzé, and thenceforth I rode on through streets, or rather lanes, of pleasant shadow. For many an hour we had seen no water; now it gushed and gleamed and sparkled all around us; from aqueduct above, and rivulet below, and marble fountain in the walls--everywhere it poured forth its rich abundance; and my horse and I soon quenched our burning thirst in Abana and Pharphar.

On we went, among gardens, fountains, odours, and cool shade, absorbed in sensations of delight. Fruits of every delicate shape and hue bent the boughs hospitably over our heads; flowers hung in canopy upon the trees and lay in variegated carpet on the ground; the lanes through which we went were long arcades of arching boughs; the walls were composed of large square blocks of dried mud, which, in that bright, dazzling light somewhat resembled Cyclopean architecture, and gave, I know not what, of simplicity and primitiveness to the scene.

At length I entered the city, and thenceforth lost the sun while I remained there. The luxurious people of Damascus exclude all sunshine from their bazaars by awnings of thick mat, whenever vine-trellises or vaulted roofs do not render this precaution unnecessary. The effects of this pleasant gloom, the cool currents of air created by the narrow streets, the vividness of the bazaars, the variety and beauty of the Oriental dress, the fragrant smell of the spice-shops, the tinkle of the brass cups of the sherbet seller--all this affords a pleasant but bewildering change from the silent desert and the glare of sunshine.

And then the glimpse of places strange to your eye, yet familiar to your imagination, that you catch as you pass along. Here is the portal of a large khan, with a fountain and cistern in the midst. Camels and bales of merchandise and turbaned negroes are scattered over its wide quadrangle, and an arcade of shops or offices surrounds it, above and below, like the streets of Chester. Another portal opens into a public bath, with its fountains, its reservoirs, its gay carpets, and its luxurious inmates clad in white linen and reclining on cushions as they smoke their chibouques.

I lodged at the Franciscan Convent, of which the terrace commands the best view, perhaps, of the city. The young Christian women of Damascus come hither in numbers to confess, which, if their tongues be as candid as their eloquent eyes, must be rather a protracted business. They are passing fair; but the Jewess, with her aristocratic mien, her proud, yet airy step, and her eagle eye, throws all others into the shade, and vindicates her lineal descent from Eve, in this, Eve's native land.

I thought Damascus was a great improvement on Cairo in every respect. It is much more thoroughly Oriental in appearance, in its mysteries, in the look and character of its inhabitants. The spirit of the Arabian Nights is quite alive in these, its native streets; and not only do you hear their fantastic tales repeated to rapt audiences in the coffee-houses, but you see them hourly exemplified in living scenes. This is probably the most ancient city in the world. Eleazar, the trusty steward of Abraham, was a citizen of it nearly 4,000 years ago, and the Arabs maintain that Adam was created here out of the red clay that is now fashioned by the potter into other forms.

The Christians for the most part belong to the Latin Church. There are some Greeks, and a few Armenians. The Christians are as fanatical and grossly ignorant as the Moslems; at least, those few, even of the wealthier class, with whom I had the opportunity of conversing.

CHARLES WATERTON

Wanderings in South America

_I.--First Journey_

Charles Waterton, who was born on June 3, 1782, and who
died on May 27, 1865, was a native of Yorkshire, England.
Brought up in a family loving country life and field
sports, he early learned to cultivate the study of natural
history. Speaking of himself in after life he said, "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 on the lower
part of Ajax.'" Educated at Tudhoe Catholic School,
Waterton became a sound Latin scholar. He proceeded to the
Jesuit College at Stonyhurst, where his tutors as far as
possible encouraged his love for natural history, at the
same time stimulating his taste for literature.
Fox-hunting was his delight and he became a famous rider.
His parents wished him to see the world, and his travels
began with a tour in Spain, visiting London on the way
back to Yorkshire and there making the acquaintance of Sir
Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society and
scientific Mæcenas of his age. In 1804 he sailed for
Demerara, there to administer the estates of his paternal
uncle, and, liking the country, managed that business till
1812, coming home at intervals. Subsequently, Waterton
undertook arduous and adventurous journeys in Guiana,
simply as a naturalist. His accounts of his experiences
made him famous. He also travelled in the United States
and the Antilles, then in Holland, Belgium, Switzerland,
Italy, and Sicily. Besides his "Wanderings in South
America" he wrote an attractive volume entitled "Natural
History: Essays."

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. The chief objects in view were to collect a quantity of the strongest Wourali poison, and to reach the inland frontier fort of Portuguese Guiana.

It would be a tedious journey for him who wishes to proceed through those wilds, to set out from Stabroek on foot. The sun would exhaust him in his attempts to wade through the swamps, and the mosquitoes at night would deprive him of every hour of sleep. The road for horses runs parallel to the river, but it extends a very little way, and even ends before the cultivation of the plantation ceases.

The only mode then that remains is to travel by water; and when you come to the high lands, you make your way through the forest on foot, or continue your route on the river. After passing the third island in the river Demerara, there are few plantations to be seen, and those are not joining on to one another, but separated by large tracts of wood. The first rocks of any considerable size are at a place called Saba, from the Indian word which means a stone. Near the top of Saba stands the house of the postholder, appointed by government to report to the protector of the Indians, of what is going on among them; and to prevent suspicious people from passing up the river.

When the Indians assemble here, the stranger may have an opportunity of seeing the aborigines, dancing to the sound of their country music, and painted in their native style. They will shoot their arrows for him with unerring aim and send the poisoned dart, from the blowpipe, true to its destination.

This is the native country of the sloth. His looks, his gestures, his cries, all conspire to entreat you to take pity on him. These are the only weapons of defence nature has given him. It is said his piteous moans make the tiger cat relent and turn out of his way. Do not then level your gun at him, or pierce him with a poisoned arrow;--he has never hurt one living creature. A few leaves, and those of the commonest and coarsest kind, are all he asks for his support.

Demerara yields to no country in the world in her wonderful and beautiful productions of the feathered race. The scarlet curlew breeds in innumerable quantities in the muddy islands on the coasts of Pomauron; the egrets in the same place. They resort to the mudflats in ebbing water, while thousands of sandpipers and plovers, with here and there a spoonbill and flamingo, are seen among them. The pelicans go farther out to sea, but return at sundown to the courada-trees.

You never fail to see the common vulture where there is carrion. At the close of day the vampires leave the hollow trees, whither they had fled at morning's dawn, and scour along the river's banks in quest of prey. On waking from sleep, the astonished traveller finds his hammock all stained with blood. It is the vampire that has sucked him.

What an immense range of forest is there from the rock Saba to the great fall, and what an uninterrupted extent from it to the banks of the Essequibo! It will be two days and a half from the time of entering the path on the western bank of the Demerara till all be ready, and the canoe fairly afloat on the Essequibo. The new rigging in it, and putting everything to rights and in its proper place, cannot well be done in less than a day.

After being night and day in the forest impervious to the sun and moon's rays, the sudden transition to light has a fine heart-cheering effect. In coming out of the woods you see the western bank of the Essequibo before you, low and flat. Proceeding onwards past many islands which enliven the scene, you get to the falls and rapids. When the river is swollen, as it was in May, 1812, it is a dangerous task to pass them.

A little before you pass the last of the rapids two immense rocks appear, which look like two ancient stately towers of some Gothic potentate, rearing their heads above the surrounding trees. From their situation and their shape, they strike the beholder with an idea of antiquated grandeur, which he will never forget. He may travel far and wide and see nothing like them. The Indians have it that they are the abode of an evil genius, and they pass in the river below, with a reverential awe.

In about seven hours, from these stupendous sons of the hill you leave the Essequibo and enter the river Apoura-poura, which falls into it from the south. Two days afterwards you are within the borders of Macoushia, inhabited by the Macoushi Indians, who are uncommonly dexterous in the use of the blowpipe and famous for their skill in preparing the deadly vegetable poison called Wourali, to which I alluded at the outset of this narration.

From this country are procured those beautiful paroquets named Kessikessi. Here too is found the india-rubber tree. The elegant crested bird called Cock of the Rock is a native of the wooded mountains of Macoushia. The Indians in this district seem to depend more on the Wourali poison for killing their game than on anything else. They had only one gun, and it appeared rusty and neglected; but their poisoned weapons were in fine order. Their blowpipes hung from the roof of the hut, carefully suspended by a silk grass cord. The quivers were close by them, with the jawbone of the fish Pirai tied by a string to their brim, and a small wicker-basket of wild cotton, which hung down the centre; they were nearly full of poisoned arrows.

On the fifth day our canoe reached the fort on the Portuguese inland frontier. I had by this time contracted a feverish attack. The Portuguese commandant, who came to greet us, discovered that I was sick. "I am sorry, sir," said he, "to see that the fever has taken such hold of you. You shall go with me to the fort; and though we have no doctor there, I trust we shall soon bring you about again. The orders I have received, forbidding the admission of strangers, were never intended to be put in force against a sick English gentleman."

Good nourishment and rest, and the unwearied attention and kindness of the Portuguese commander, stopped the progress of the fever, and enabled me to walk about in six days. Having reached this frontier, and collected a sufficient quantity of the Wourali poison, nothing remains but to give a brief account of its composition, its effects, its uses, and its supposed antidotes.

Much has been said concerning this fatal and extraordinary poison. Wishful to obtain the best information, I determined to penetrate into the country where the poisonous ingredients grow. Success attended the adventure, and this made amends for the 120 days passed in the solitudes of Guiana. It is certain that if a sufficient quantity of the poison enters the blood, death is the result; but there is no alteration in the colour of the blood, and both the blood and the flesh may be eaten with safety.

This poison destroys life so gently that the victim seems to be in no pain whatever. The Indian finds in the wilds a vine called Wourali, which furnishes the chief ingredient. He also adds the juices of a bitter root and of two bulbous plants. Next he hunts till he finds two species of ants, one very large, black, and venomous; the other small and red, which stings like a nettle. He adds the pounded fangs of the Labarri and the Counacouchi snakes; and the last ingredient is red pepper.

The mixture is boiled and looks like coffee. It is poured into a calabash. Let us now note how it is used. When the Indian goes in quest of game, he seldom carries his bow and arrows. It is the blowpipe he then uses. This is a most extraordinary instrument of death. The reed must grow to an amazing length, as the part used is ten feet long. This is placed inside a larger tube. The arrow is from nine to ten inches long. It is made out of leaf of a species of palm-tree, and about an inch of the pointed end is poisoned. The other end is fixed into a lump of wild cotton made skilfully to fit the tube.

Chiefly birds are shot with this weapon. The flesh of the game is not in the least injured by the poison. For larger game bows are used with poisoned arrows.

An Arowack Indian said it was but four years ago that he and his companions were ranging in the forest for game. His companion took a poisoned arrow and sent it at a red monkey in a tree above him. It was nearly a perpendicular shot. The arrow missed the monkey, and, in the descent, struck him in the arm. He was convinced it was all over with him. "I shall never bend this bow again," said he. And having said that, he took off his little bamboo poison box, which hung across his shoulder, and putting it with his bow and arrow on the ground, he laid himself close by them, bid his companion farewell, and never spoke more.

Sugar-cane and salt are supposed to be antidotes, but in reality they are of no avail. He who is unfortunate enough to be wounded by a poisoned arrow from Macoushia will find them of no avail. He has got a deadly foe within him which will allow him but very little time. In a few moments he will be numbered with the dead.

_II.--Second Journey_

In the year 1816, two days before the vernal equinox, I sailed from Liverpool for Pernambuco, in the southern hemisphere, on the coast of Brazil. Arrived there, I embarked on board of a Portuguese brig for Cayenne in Guiana. On the 14th day after leaving Pernambuco, the brig cast anchor off the island of Cayenne. The entrance is beautiful. To windward, not far off, are two bold wooded islands, called Father and Mother; and near them are others, their children, smaller, though beautiful as their parents.

All along the coast are seen innumerable quantities of snow-white egrets, scarlet curlews, spoonbills, and flamingoes. About a day's journey in the interior is the celebrated national plantation called La Gabrielle, with which no other plantation in the western world can vie. In it are 22,000 clove-trees in full bearing. The black pepper, the cinnamon, and the nutmeg are also in great abundance here.

Not far from the banks of the river Oyapoc, to windward of Cayenne, is a mountain which contains an immense cavern. Here the Cock of the Rock is plentiful. He is about the size of a fantail pigeon, his colour a bright orange and his wings and tail appear as though fringed; his head is adorned with a superb double-feathery crest, edged with purple.

Finding that a beat to the Amazons would be long and tedious, and aware that the season for procuring birds in fine plumage had already set in, I left Cayenne for Paramaribo, went through the interior to Coryntin, stopped a few days in New Amsterdam, and proceeded to Demerara.

Though least in size, the glittering mantle of the humming-bird entitles it to the first place in the list of the birds of the New World. See it darting through the air almost as quick as thought. Now it is within a yard of your face, and then is in an instant gone. Now it flutters from flower to flower. Now it is a ruby, now a topaz, now an emerald, now all burnished gold.

Cayenne and Demerara produce the same humming-birds. On entering the forests the blue and green, the smallest brown, no bigger than the humble bee, with two long feathers in the tail, and the little forked-tail purple-throated humming-birds glitter before you in ever-changing attitudes.

There are three species of toucans in Dememara, and three diminutives, which may be called toucanets. The singular form of these birds makes a lasting impression on the memory. Every species of this family of enormous bill lays its eggs in the hollow trees. You will be at a loss to know for what ends nature has overloaded the head of this bird with such an enormous bill. It is impossible to conjecture.

You would not be long in the forests of Demerara without noticing the woodpeckers. The sound which the largest kind makes in hammering against the bark of the tree is so loud that you would never suppose it to proceed from the efforts of a bird. You would take it to be the woodman, with his axe, striking a sturdy blow, oft repeated. There are fourteen species here, all beautiful, and the greater part of them have their heads ornamented with a fine crest, movable at pleasure.

In the rivers, and different creeks, you number six species of the kingfisher. They make their nest in a hole in the sand on the side of the bank. Wherever there is a wild fig-tree ripe, a numerous species of birds, called Tangara, is sure to be on it. There are 18 beautiful species here. Their plumage is very rich and diversified; some of them boast six different colours.

Parrots and paroquets are very numerous here, and of many different kinds. The hia-hia parrot, called in England the parrot of the sun, is very remarkable. He can erect at pleasure a fine radiated circle of tartan feathers quite around the back of his head from jaw to jaw. Superior in size and beauty to every parrot of South America, the ara will force you to take your eyes from the rest of animated nature and gaze at him. His commanding strength, the flaming scarlet of his body, the lovely variety of red, yellow, blue, and green in his wings, the extraordinary length of his blue and scarlet tail, seem all to join and demand for him the title of emperor of all the parrots.

There are nine species of the goatsucker in Demerara, a bird with prettily mottled plumage like that of the owl. Its cry is so remarkable that, once heard it can never be forgotten. When night reigns over these wilds you will hear this goatsucker lamenting like one in deep distress. A stranger would never conceive the cry to be that of a bird. He would say it was the departing voice of a midnight murdered victim, or the last wailing of Niobe for her poor children, before she was turned into stone.

Suppose yourself in hopeless sorrow, begin with a high loud note, and pronounce "ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha," each note lower and lower, till the last is scarcely heard, pausing a moment or two betwixt every note, and you will have some idea of the moaning of the goatsucker of Demerara. You will never persuade the native to let fly his arrow at these birds. They are creatures of omen and of reverential dread. They are the receptacles of departed souls come back to earth, unable to rest for crimes done in their days of nature.

_III.--Third Journey_

Gentle reader, after staying a few months in England, I strayed across the Alps and the Apennines, and returned home, but could not tarry. Guiana still whispered in my ear, and seemed to invite me once more to wander through her distant forests. In February, 1820, I sailed from the Clyde, on board the Glenbervie, a fine West Indiaman.

Sad and mournful was the story we heard on entering the river Demerara. The yellow fever had swept off numbers of the old inhabitants, and the mortal remains of many a new comer were daily passing down the streets, in slow and mute procession.

I myself was soon attacked severely by the fever, but was fortunate enough to recover after much suffering. Next I was wounded painfully in the foot by treading on a hard stump, while pursuing a red woodpecker in the depths of the forest. The wound healed in about three weeks, and I again joyfully sallied forth.

Let us now turn attention to the sloth, whose haunts have hitherto been so little known. He is a scarce and solitary animal, living in trees, and being good food, is never allowed to escape. He inhabits remote and gloomy forests, where snakes take up their abode, and where cruelly stinging ants and scorpions, and swamps, and innumerable thorny shrubs and bushes obstruct the steps of civilized man. We are now in the sloth's own domain.

Some years ago I kept a sloth in my room for several months. I often took him out of the house and placed him on the ground. If the ground were rough, he would pull himself forward, by means of his forelegs, at a pretty good pace. He invariably shaped his course at once towards the nearest tree. But if I put him on a smooth and well-trodden part of the road, he appeared to be in trouble and distress. His favourite abode was the back of a chair, and after getting all his legs in a line on the topmost part of it, he would hang there for hours together, and often with a low and inward cry, would seem to invite me to take notice of him.

We will now take a view of the vampire. As there was a free entrance and exit to the vampire, in the loft where I slept, I had many fine opportunities of paying attention to this nocturnal surgeon. He does not always live on blood. When the moon shone brightly, and the bananas were ripe, I could see him approach and eat them. The vampire measures about 26 inches from wing to wing extended. He frequents old abandoned houses and hollow trees, and sometimes a cluster of them may be seen in the forest hanging head downward from the branch of a tree.

Some years ago I went to the river Paumaron with a Scotch gentleman, by name Tarbet. Next morning I heard him 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," I said, 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, see how these infernal imps have been drawing my life's blood," said he, thrusting a foot out of the hammock. 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.

I had often wished to have been once sucked by the vampire, in order that I might have it in my power to say it had really happened to me. There can be no pain in the operation, for the patient is always asleep when the vampire is sucking him; and as for the loss of a few ounces of blood, that would be a trifle in the long run. Many a night have I slept with my foot out of the hammock to tempt this winged surgeon, expecting that he would be there; but it was all in vain; the vampire never sucked me, and I could never account for his not doing so, for we were inhabitants of the same loft for months together.

Let us now forget for awhile the quadrupeds and other animals, and take a glance at the native Indians of these forests. There are five principal tribes in Demerara, commonly known by the name of Warow, Arowack, Acoway, Carib, and Macoushi. They live in small hamlets consisting never of more than twelve huts. These huts are always in the forest near a river. They are open on all sides (except those of the Macoushi) and covered with a species of palm-leaf.

Both men and women are unclothed. They are a very clean people, and wash in the river at least twice a day. They have very few diseases. I never saw an idiot among their number. Their women never perish at childbirth, owing no doubt to their never wearing stays. They are very jealous of their liberty, and much attached to their own mode of living. Some Indians who have accompanied white men to Europe, on returning to their own land, have thrown off their clothes, and gone back into the forests.

Let us now return to natural history. One morning I killed a Coulacanara, a snake 14 feet long, large enough to have crushed any one of us to death. After skinning it I could easily get my head into his mouth, as its jaws admit of wonderful extension. A Dutch friend of mine killed a boa 22 feet long, with a pair of stag's horns in his mouth. He had swallowed the stag but could not get the horns down. In this plight the Dutchman found him as he was going in his canoe up the river, and sent a ball through his head.

One Sunday morning a negro informed me that he had discovered a great snake in a large tree which had been upset by a whirlwind and was lying decaying on the ground. I had been in search of a large serpent for a long time. I told two negroes to follow me while I led the way with a cutlass in my hand. Taking as an additional weapon a long lance, I carried this perpendicularly before me, with the point about a foot from the ground. The snake had not moved, and on getting up to him, I struck him with the lance just behind the neck, and pinned him to the ground. That moment the negro next to me seized the lance and held it fast in its place, while I dashed up to grapple with the serpent, and to get hold of his tail before he could do any mischief.

The snake on being pinned gave a tremendous hiss. We had a sharp fray, rotten sticks flying on all sides, and each party struggling for superiority. I called to the second negro to throw himself on me, as I found I was not heavy enough. He did so and the additional weight was of great service. I had now got firm hold of his tail, and after a violent struggle or two, he gave in. So I contrived to unloose my braces and with them tied up the snake's mouth.

The serpent now tried to better himself and set resolutely to work, but we overpowered him. We contrived to make him twist himself round the shaft of the 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 the belly, and the other the tail. In this order we slowly moved towards home, resting ten times. The snake vainly fought hard for freedom. At my abode I cut his throat. He bled like an ox. By next evening he was completely dissected.

When I had done with the carcase of the great snake it was conveyed into the forest, as I expected it would attract the king of the vultures, as soon as time should have rendered it sufficiently savoury. In a few days it sent forth that odour which a carcase should, and about twenty of the common vultures came and perched on the neighbouring trees. The king of the vultures came too; and I observed that none of the common ones inclined to begin breakfast till his majesty had finished. When he had consumed as much snake as nature informed him would do him good, he retired to the top of a high mora-tree, and then all the common vultures fell to and made a hearty meal.

When canoeing down the noble river Essequibo I had an adventure with a cayman, which we caught with a shark hook baited with the flesh of the acouri. The cayman was ten and a half feet long. He had swallowed the bait in the night and was thus fast to the end of a rope. My people pulled him up from the depths and out he came--"_monstrum horrendum, informe_." I saw that he was in a state of fear and perturbation. I jumped on his back, immediately seized his forelegs, and by main force twisted them on his back; thus they served for a bridle.

The cayman now seemed to have recovered from his surprise and plunged furiously, and lashed the sand with his long 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 spectator. The people roared in triumph and pulled us above forty yards on the sand. It was the first time I was ever on a cayman's back. Should it be asked how I managed to keep my seat, I would answer that I hunted for some years with Lord Darlington's foxhounds.

After some further struggling the cayman gave in. I now managed to tie up his jaws. He was finally conveyed to the canoe and then to the place where we had suspended our hammocks. There I cut his throat and after breakfast commenced the dissection.

ARTHUR YOUNG

Travels in France

_I.--The First Journey, 1787_

Arthur Young was born September 11, 1741, at Whitehall;
died April 20, 1820. Most of his life was spent on his
patrimonial estate at Bradfield Hall, near Bury St.
Edmunds, England. He was the son of the Rev. Dr. Arthur
Young, rector of Bradfield, Prebendary of Canterbury
Cathedral, and Chaplain to Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the
House of Commons. On his father's death he took to
farming, but at the same time addicted himself to
literature, becoming a parliamentary reporter. Arthur
Young was indeed much more successful in literary pursuits
than in the practice of husbandry. His book entitled "A
Tour Through the Southern Counties of England" achieved
great popularity. This he actively followed by writing
other works describing agricultural conditions in various
parts of England, and in Ireland. His vivid and
interesting style secured for his treatises a very wide
circulation. In 1784 he commenced the issue of an annual
register entitled "The Annals of Agriculture" of which 45
volumes were published. Three years later an invitation
from the Comte de la Rochefoucauld induced Young to visit
France. He went a second and a third time, and created a
sensation by the publication of an account of his
experiences during the three consecutive years that
immediately preceded the Revolution. Arthur Young
travelled on horseback through many districts of France in
the midst of the disturbances. So realistic is his account
that it is regarded as the most reliable record ever
written of the French rural conditions of that period. The
French Directory ordered all Young's works to be
translated into French, and they are as popular as ever
to-day across the Channel.

There are two methods of writing travels; to register the journey itself, or the result of it. In the former case it is a diary; the latter usually falls into the shape of essays on distinct subjects. A journal form has the advantage of carrying with a greater degree of credibility; and, of course, more weight. A traveller who thus registers his observations is detected the moment he writes of things he has not seen. If he sees little, he must register little. The reader is saved from imposition. On the other hand a diary necessarily leads to repetitions on the same subjects and the same ideas.

In favour of composing essays there is the counterbalancing advantage that the matter comes with the full effect of force and completeness from the author. Another admirable circumstance is brevity, by the rejection of all useless details. After weighing the _pour_ and the _contre_, I think it not impracticable to retain in my case the benefit of both plans.

JOURNAL. May 15. The strait that separates England, fortunately for her, from the rest of the world, must be crossed many times before the traveller ceases to be surprised at the sudden and universal change that surrounds him on landing at Calais. The scene, the people, the language, every object is new. The noble improvement of a salt marsh by Mons. Mourons of this town, occasioned my acquaintance some time ago with that gentleman. I spent an agreeable and instructive evening at his house.

May 17. Nine hours rolling at anchor had so fatigued my mare, that I thought it necessary to rest her one day; but this morning I left Calais. For a few miles the country resembles parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. The aspect is the same on to Boulogne. Towards that town I was pleased to find many seats belonging to people who reside there. How often are false ideas conceived from reading and report. I imagined that nobody but farmers and labourers in France lived in the country; and the first ride I take in that kingdom shows me a score of country seats. The road is excellent.

May 18. Boulogne is not an ugly town, and from the ramparts of the upper part the view is beautiful. Many persons from England reside here, their misfortunes in trade or extravagance in living making their sojourn abroad more agreeable than at home.

The country around improves. It is more inclosed. There are some fine meadows about Bonbrie, and several chateaux. I am not professedly on husbandry in this diary, but must just observe, that it is to the full as bad as the country is good; corn miserable and yellow with weeds, yet all summer fallowed with lost attention.

May 22. Poverty and poor crops at Amiens. Women are now ploughing with a pair of horses to sow barley. The difference of the customs of the two nations is in nothing more striking than in the labours of the sex; in England it is very little they will do in the fields except to glean and make hay; the first is a party of pilfering, and the second of pleasure; in France they plough and fill the dung-cart.

May 25. The environs of Clermont are picturesque. The hills about Liancourt are pretty and spread with a kind of cultivation I have never seen before, a mixture of vineyards (for here the vines first appear), gardens and corn. A piece of wheat, a scrap of lucorne, a patch of clover or vetches, a bit of vine with cherry and other fruit trees scattered among all, and the whole cultivated with the spade; it makes a pretty appearance, but must form a poor system of trifling.

The forest around Chantilly, belonging to the Prince of Condé, is immense, spreading far and wide. They say the capitainerie, or paramountship, is above 100 miles in circumference. That is to say, all the inhabitants for that extent are pestered with game, without permission to destroy it, for one man's diversion. Ought not these capitaineries to be extirpated?

May 27. At Versailles. After breakfasting with Count de la Rochefoucauld at his apartments in the palace, where he is grand master of the wardrobe, was introduced by him to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. As the duke is going to Luchon in the Pyrenees, I am to have the honour of being one of the party. The ceremony of the day was the king's investing the Duke of Berri with the _cordon bleu_. The queen's band was in the chapel during the function, but the musical effect was thin and weak. During the service the king was seated between his two brothers, and seemed by his carriage and inattention to wish himself a hunting. The queen is the most beautiful woman I saw to-day.

May 30. At Orleans. The country around is one universal flat, unenclosed, uninteresting, and even tedious, but the prospect from the steeple of the fine cathedral is commanding, extending over an unbounded plain, through which the magnificent Loire bends his stately way, in sight for 14 leagues.

May 31. On leaving Orleans, enter the miserable province of Sologne. The poor people who cultivate the soil here are métayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide seed and cattle, and he and his tenant divide the produce; a miserable system that perpetuates poverty and prevents instruction. The same wretched country continues to La Loge; the fields are scenes of pitiable management, as the houses are full of misery. Heaven grant me patience while I see a country thus neglected, and forgive me the oaths I swear at the absence and ignorance of the possessors.

June 11. See for the first time the Pyrenees, at the distance of 150 miles. Towards Cahors the country changes and has something of a savage aspect, yet houses are seen everywhere, and one-third of it under vines. The town is bad; its chief trade and resource are wines and brandies.

June 14. Reach Toulouse, which is a very large and very ancient city, but not peopled in proportion to its size. It has had a university since 1215 and has always prided itself on its taste for literature and art. The noble quay is of great length.

June 16. A ridge of hills on the other side of the Garonne, which began at Toulouse, became more and more regular yesterday; and is undoubtedly the most distant ramification of the Pyrenees, reaching into this vast vale quite to Toulouse, but no farther. Approach the mountains; the lower ones are all cultivated, but the higher ones seem covered with wood. Meet many wagons, each loaded with two casks of wine, quite backward in the carriage, and as the hind wheels are much higher than the lower ones, it shows that these mountaineers have more sense than John Bull.

The wheels of these wagons are all shod with wood instead of iron. Here for the first time, see rows of maples, with vines trained in festoons from tree to tree; they are conducted by a rope of bramble, vine cutting, or willow. They give many grapes, but bad wine. Pass St. Martino, and then a large village of well built houses, without a single glass window.

June 17. St. Gaudens is an improving town, with many new houses, something more than comfortable. An uncommon view of St. Bertrand. You break at once upon a vale sunk deep enough beneath the point of view to command every hedge and tree, with that town clustered round its large cathedral, on a rising ground. The mountains rise proudly around, and give their rough frame to this exquisite little picture. Immense quantities of poultry in all this country; most of it the people salt and keep in grease.

Quit the Garonne some leagues before Serpe, where the river Neste falls into it. The road to Bagnére is along this river, in a narrow valley, at one end of which is built the town of Luchon, the termination of our journey; which has to me been one of the most agreeable I ever undertook. Having now crossed the kingdom, and been in many French inns, I shall in general observe, that they are on an average better in two respects, and worse in all the rest, than those in England. We have lived better in point of eating and drinking beyond a question, than we should have done in going from London to the Highlands of Scotland, at double the expense.

The common cookery of the French gives great advantage. It is true they roast everything to a chip if they are not cautioned, but they give such a number and variety of dishes, that if you do not like some, there are others to please your palate. The dessert at a French inn has no rival at an English one. But you have no parlour to eat in; only a room with two, three, or four beds. Apartments badly fitted up; the walls whitewashed; or paper of different sorts in the same room; or tapestry so old as to be a fit _nidus_ for moths and spiders; and the furniture such, that an English innkeeper would light his fire with it.

For a table you have everywhere a board laid on cross bars, which are so conveniently contrived as to leave room for your legs only at the end. Oak chairs with rush bottoms, and the back universally perpendicular, defying all idea of rest after fatigue. Doors give music as well as entrance; the wind whistles through their chinks; and hinges grate discord. Windows admit rain as well as light; when shut they are not easy to open; and when open not easy to shut.

Mops, brooms, and scrubbing brushes are not in the catalogue of the necessaries of a French inn. Bells there are none; the _fille_ must always be bawled for; and when she appears, is neither neat, well dressed, nor handsome. The kitchen is black with smoke; the master commonly the cook, and the less you see of the cooking the more likely you are to have a stomach to your dinner. The mistress rarely classes civility or attention to her guests among the requisites of her trade. We are so unaccustomed in England to live in our bed-chambers that it is at first awkward in France to find that people live nowhere else. Here I find that everybody, let his rank be what it may, lives in his bed-chamber.

_II.--Second Journey, 1788_

August 27. Cherbourg. Not a place for a residence longer than is necessary. I was here fleeced more infamously than at any other town in France.

Sept. 5. To Montauban. The poor people seem poor indeed; the children terribly ragged, if possible worse clad than if with no clothes at all; as to shoes and stockings, they are luxuries. A beautiful girl of six or seven playing with a stick, and smiling under such a bundle of rags as made my heart ache to see her. One-third of this province seems uncultivated, and nearly all of it in misery. What have kings, and ministers, and parliaments, and states, to answer for their prejudices, seeing millions of hands that would be industrious, idle and starving through the execrable maxims of despotism, or the equally detestable prejudices of a feudal nobility. Sleep at the "Lion d'Or," at Montauban, an abominable hole.

The 8th. Enter Bas Bretagne. One recognises at once another people, meeting numbers who know no French. Enter Guingamp by gateways, towers, and battlements, apparently the oldest military architecture; every part denoting antiquity, and in the best preservation. The habitations of the poor are miserable heaps of dirt; no glass, and scarcely any light; but they have earth chimneys.

Sept. 21. Came to an improvement in the midst of sombre country. Four good houses of stone and slate, and a few acres run to wretched grass, which have been tilled, but all savage, and become almost as rough as the rest. I was afterwards informed that this improvement, as it is called, was wrought by Englishmen, at the expense of a gentleman they ruined as well as themselves. I demanded how it had been done? Pare and burn, and sow wheat, then rye, and then oats. Thus it is for ever and ever! The same follies, blundering, and ignorance; and then all the fools in the country said as they do now, that these wastes are good for nothing. To my amazement I find that they reach within three miles of the great commercial city of Nantes.

The 22nd. At Nantes, a town which has that sign of prosperity of new buildings that never deceives. The quarter of the Comédie is magnificent, all the streets at right angles and of white stone. Messrs. Epivent had the goodness to attend me in a water expedition, to view the establishment of Mr. Wilkinson, for boring cannon, in an island on the Loire, below Nantes. Until that well-known English manufacturer arrived, the French knew nothing of the art of casting cannon solid, and then boring them.

Nantes is as _enflammé_ in the cause of liberty as any town in France can be. The conversations I have witnessed here prove how great a change is effected in the mind of the French, nor do I believe it will be possible for the present government to last half a century longer. The American revolution has laid the foundation of another in France, if government does not take care of itself. On the 23rd one of the twelve prisoners from the Bastille arrived here--he was the most violent of them all--and his imprisonment has not silenced him.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE.--It wanted no great spirit of prophecy to foretell this revolution; but later events have shown that I was very wide of the mark when I talked of fifty years. The twelve gentlemen of Bretagne deputed to Versailles, mentioned above, were sent with a denunciation of the ministers for their suspension of provincial parliaments. They were at once sent to the Bastille. It was this war of the king and the parliaments that brought about the assembly of the States General, the step being decided on by the assembly of Grenoble, July 21, 1788.]

_III.--Third Journey, 1789_

June 5. Passage to Calais; 14 hours for reflection in a vehicle that does not allow one power to reflect.

The 8th. At Paris, which is at present in such a ferment about the States General, now holding at Versailles, that conversation is absolutely absorbed by them. The nobility and clergy demand one thing, the commons another. The king, court, nobility, clergy, army, and parliament are nearly in the same situation. All these consider, with equal dread, the ideas of liberty, now afloat; except the king, who, for reasons obvious to those who know his character, troubles himself little, even with circumstances that concern his character the most intimately.