I offer this book of "Wanderings" with a hesitating hand. It has littlemerit, and must make its way through the world as well as it can. It willreceive many a jostle as it goes along, and perhaps is destined to add onemore to the number of slain in the field of modern criticism. But if itfall, it may still, in death, be useful to me; for should some accidentalrover take it up and, in turning over its pages, imbibe the idea of goingout to explore Guiana in order to give the world an enlarged description ofthat noble country, I shall say, "fortem ad fortia misi," and demand thearmour; that is, I shall lay claim to a certain portion of the honours hewill 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 intendedto have written much more at length; but days and months and years havepassed away, and nothing has been done. Thinking it very probable that Ishall never have patience enough to sit down and write a full account ofall I saw and examined in those remote wilds, I give up the intention ofdoing so, and send forth this account of my "Wanderings" just as it waswritten at the time.
If critics are displeased with it in its present form, I beg to observethat it is not totally devoid of interest, and that it contains somethinguseful. Several of the unfortunate gentlemen who went out to explore theCongo were thankful for the instructions they found in it; and Sir JosephBanks, on sending back the journal, said in his letter: "I return yourjournal with abundant thanks for the very instructive lesson you havefavoured us with this morning, which far excelled, in real utility,everything I have hitherto seen." And in another letter he says: "I hearwith particular pleasure your intention of resuming your interestingtravels, to which natural history has already been so much indebted." Andagain: "I am sorry you did not deposit some part of your last harvest ofbirds in the British Museum, that your name might become familiar tonaturalists and your unrivalled skill in preserving birds be made known tothe public." And again: "You certainly have talents to set forth a bookwhich 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 theRoyal Society of its brightest ornament.
CONTENTS
ON PRESERVING BIRDS FOR CABINETS OF NATURAL HISTORY
----nec herba, nec latens in asperis
Radix fefellit me locis.
In the month of April 1812 I left the town of Stabroek to travel throughthe wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, a part of ci-devant DutchGuiana, in South America.
The chief objects in view were to collect a quantity of the strongestwourali poison and to reach the inland frontier-fort of Portuguese Guiana.
It would be a tedious j