Wanderings in South America

Wanderings In South America,
by Charles Waterton

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Title: Wanderings In South America
Author: Charles Waterton
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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.
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 travel through
these wilds to set out from Stabroek