examining the goat-sucker. You will see it close by the cows, goats and
sheep, jumping up every now and then under their bellies. Approach a
little nearer--he is not shy: "he fears no danger, for he knows no
sin." See how the nocturnal flies are tormenting the herd, and with
what dexterity he springs up and catches them as fast as they alight on
the belly, legs and udder of the animals. Observe how quiet they stand,
and how sensible they seem of his good offices, for they neither strike
at him nor hit him with their tail, nor tread on him, nor try to drive
him away as an uncivil intruder. Were you to dissect him, and inspect
his stomach, you would find no milk there. It is full of the flies
which have been annoying the herd.
The prettily-mottled plumage of the goat-sucker, like that of the owl,
wants the lustre which is observed in the feathers of the birds of day.
This at once marks him as a lover of the pale moon's nightly beams.
There are nine species here. The largest appears nearly the size of the
English wood-owl. Its cry is so remarkable that, having once heard it,
you will never forget it. When night reigns over these immeasurable
wilds, whilst lying in your hammock you will hear this goat-sucker
lamenting like one in deep distress. A stranger would never conceive it
to be the cry 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 largest goat-sucker in Demerara.
Four other species of the goat-sucker articulate some words so
distinctly that they have received their names from the sentences they
utter, and absolutely bewilder the stranger on his arrival in these
parts. The most common one sits down close by your door, and flies and
alights three or four yards before you, as you walk along the road,
crying, "Who-are-you, who-who-who-are-you." Another bids you
"Work-away, work-work-work-away." A third cries, mournfully,
"Willy-come-go, willy-willy-willy-come-go." And high up in the country
a fourth tells you to "Whip-poor-will, whip-whip-whip-poor-will."
You will never persuade the negro to destroy these birds or get the
Indian to let fly his arrow at them. They are birds of omen and
reverential dread. Jumbo, the demon of Africa, has them under his
command, and they equally obey the Yabahou, or Demerara Indian devil.
They are the receptacles for departed souls, who come back again to
earth, unable to rest for crimes done in their days of nature; or they
are expressly sent by Jumbo, or Yabahou, to haunt cruel and
hard-hearted masters and retaliate injuries received from them. If the
largest goat-sucker chance to cry near the white man's door, sorrow and
grief will soon be inside: and they expect to see the master waste away
with a slow consuming sickness. If it be heard close to the negro's or
Indian's hut, from that night misfortune sits brooding over it: and
they await the event in terrible suspense.
You will forgive the poor Indian of Guiana for this. He knows no
better; he has nobody to teach him. But shame it is that in our own
civilised country the black cat and broomstaff should be considered as
conductors to and from the regions of departed spirits.
Many years ago I knew poor harmless Mary: old age had marked her
strongly, just as he will mark you and me, should we arrive at her
years and carry the weight of grief which bent her double. The old men
of the village said she had been very pretty in her youth, and nothing
could be seen more comely than Mary when she danced on the green. He
who had gained her heart left her for another, less fair, though
richer, than Mary. From that time she became sad and pensive; the rose
left her cheek, and she was never more seen to dance round the maypole
on the green. Her expectations were blighted; she became quite
indifferent to everything around her, and seemed to think of nothing
but how she could best attend her mother, who was lame and not long for
this life. Her mother had begged a black kitten from some boys who were
going to drown it, and in her last illness she told Mary to be kind to
it for her sake.
When age and want had destroyed the symmetry of Mary's fine form, the
village began to consider her as one who had dealings with spirits: her
cat confirmed the suspicion. If a cow died, or a villager wasted away
with an unknown complaint, Mary and her cat had it to answer for. Her
broom sometimes served her for a walking-stick: and if ever she
supported her tottering frame with it as far as the maypole, where
once, in youthful bloom and beauty, she had attracted the eyes of all,
the boys would surround her and make sport of her, while her cat had
neither friend nor safety beyond the cottage-wall. Nobody considered it
cruel or uncharitable to torment a witch; and it is probable, long
before this, that cruelty, old age and want have worn her out, and that
both poor Mary and her cat have ceased to be.
Would you wish to pursue the different species of game, well-stored and
boundless is your range in Demerara. Here no one dogs you, and
afterwards clandestinely inquires if you have a hundred a year in land
to entitle you to enjoy such patrician sport. Here no saucy intruder
asks if you have taken out a licence, by virtue of which you are
allowed to kill the birds which have bred upon your own property. Here
You are as free as when God first made man,
Ere the vile laws of servitude began,
And wild in woods the noble savage ran.
Before the morning's dawn you hear a noise in the forest which sounds
like "duraquaura" often repeated. This is the partridge, a little
smaller than and differing somewhat in colour from the English
partridge: it lives entirely in the forest, and probably the young
brood very soon leaves its parents, as you never flush more than two
birds in the same place, and in general only one.
About the same hour, and sometimes even at midnight, you hear two
species of maam, or tinamou, send forth their long and plaintive
whistle from the depth of the forest. The flesh of both is delicious.
The largest is plumper, and almost equals in size the blackcock of
Northumberland. The quail is said to be here, though rare.
The hannaquoi, which some have compared to the pheasant, though with
little reason, is very common.
Here are also two species of the powise, or hocco, and two of the small
wild turkeys called maroudi: they feed on the ripe fruits of the forest
and are found in all directions in these extensive wilds. You will
admire the horned screamer as a stately and majestic bird: he is almost
the size of the turkey-cock, on his head is a long slender horn, and
each wing is armed with a strong, sharp, triangular spur an inch long.
Sometimes you will fall in with flocks of two or three hundred
waracabas, or trumpeters, called so from the singular noise they
produce. Their breast is adorned with beautiful changing blue and
purple feathers; their head and neck like velvet; their wings and back
grey, and belly black. They run with great swiftness, and when
domesticated attend their master in his walks with as much apparent
affection as his dog. They have no spurs, but still, such is their high
spirit and activity, they browbeat every dunghill fowl in the yard and
force the guinea-birds, dogs and turkeys to own their superiority.
If, kind and gentle reader, thou shouldst ever visit these regions with
an intention to examine their productions, perhaps the few observations
contained in these wanderings may be of service to thee. Excuse their
brevity: more could have been written, and each bird more particularly
described, but it would have been pressing too hard upon thy time and
patience.
Soon after arriving in these parts thou wilt find that the species here
enumerated are only as a handful from a well-stored granary. Nothing
has been said of the eagles, the falcons, the hawks and shrikes;
nothing of the different species of vultures, the king of which is very
handsome, and seems to be the only bird which claims regal honours from
a surrounding tribe. It is a fact beyond all dispute that, when the
scent of carrion has drawn together hundreds of the common vultures,
they all retire from the carcass as soon as the king of the vultures
makes his appearance. When his majesty has satisfied the cravings of
his royal stomach with the choicest bits from the most stinking and
corrupted parts, he generally retires to a neighbouring tree, and then
the common vultures return in crowds to gobble down his leavings. The
Indians, as well as the whites, have observed this, for when one of
them, who has learned a little English, sees the king, and wishes you
to have a proper notion of the bird, he says: "There is the governor of
the carrion-crows."
Now the Indians have never heard of a personage in Demerara higher than
that of governor; and the colonists, through a common mistake, call the
vultures carrion-crows. Hence the Indian, in order to express the
dominion of this bird over the common vultures, tells you he is
governor of the carrion-crows. The Spaniards have also observed it, for
through all the Spanish Main he is called Rey de Zamuros, king of the
vultures. The many species of owls, too, have not been noticed; and no
mention made of the columbine tribe. The prodigious variety of
water-fowl on the sea-shore has been but barely hinted at.
There, and on the borders and surface of the inland waters, in the
marshes and creeks, besides the flamingos, scarlet curlews and
spoonbills already mentioned, will be found greenish-brown curlews,
sandpipers, rails, coots, gulls, pelicans, jabirus, nandapoas,
crabiers, snipes, plovers, ducks, geese, cranes and anhingas; most of
them in vast abundance; some frequenting only the sea-coast, others
only the interior, according to their different natures; all worthy the
attention of the naturalist, all worthy of a place in the cabinet of
the curious.
Should thy comprehensive genius not confine itself to birds alone,
grand is the appearance of other objects all around. Thou art in a land
rich in botany and mineralogy, rich in zoology and entomology.
Animation will glow in thy looks and exercise will brace thy frame in
vigour. The very time of thy absence from the tables of heterogeneous
luxury will be profitable to thy stomach, perhaps already sorely
drenched with Londo-Parisian sauces, and a new stock of health will
bring thee an appetite to relish the wholesome food of the chase.
Never-failing sleep will wait on thee at the time she comes to soothe
the rest of animated nature, and ere the sun's rays appear in the
horizon thou wilt spring from thy hammock fresh as the April lark. Be
convinced also that the dangers and difficulties which are generally
supposed to accompany the traveller in his journey through distant
regions are not half so numerous or dreadful as they are commonly
thought to be.
The youth who incautiously reels into the lobby of Drury Lane after
leaving the table sacred to the god of wine is exposed to more certain
ruin, sickness and decay than he who wanders a whole year in the wilds
of Demerara. But this will never be believed because the disasters
arising from dissipation are so common and frequent in civilised life
that man becomes quite habituated to them, and sees daily victims sink
into the tomb long before their time without ever once taking alarm at
the causes which precipitated them headlong into it.
But the dangers which a traveller exposes himself to in foreign parts
are novel, out-of-the-way things to a man at home. The remotest
apprehension of meeting a tremendous tiger, of being carried off by a
flying dragon, or having his bones picked by a famished cannibal: oh,
that makes him shudder. It sounds in his ears like the bursting of a
bombshell. Thank Heaven he is safe by his own fireside.
Prudence and resolution ought to be the traveller's constant
companions. The first will cause him to avoid a number of snares which
he will find in the path as he journeys on; and the second will always
lend a hand to assist him if he has unavoidably got entangled in them.
The little distinctions which have been shown him at his own home ought
to be forgotten when he travels over the world at large, for strangers
know nothing of his former merits, and it is necessary that they should
witness them before they pay him the tribute which he was wont to
receive within his own doors. Thus to be kind and affable to those we
meet, to mix in their amusements, to pay a compliment or two to their
manners and customs, to respect their elders, to give a little to their
distressed and needy, and to feel, as it were, at home amongst them, is
the sure way to enable you to pass merrily on, and to find other
comforts as sweet and palatable as those which you were accustomed to
partake of amongst your friends and acquaintance in your own native
land.
We will now ascend in fancy on Icarian wing and take a view of Guiana
in general. See an immense plain! betwixt two of the largest rivers in
the world, level as a bowling-green, save at Cayenne, and covered with
trees along the coast quite to the Atlantic wave, except where the
plantations make a little vacancy amongst the foliage.
Though nearly in the centre of the Torrid Zone, the sun's rays are not
so intolerable as might be imagined, on account of the perpetual
verdure and refreshing north-east breeze. See what numbers of broad and
rapid rivers intersect it in their journey to the ocean, and that not a
stone or a pebble is to be found on their banks, or in any part of the
country, till your eye catches the hills in the interior. How beautiful
and magnificent are the lakes in the heart of the forests, and how
charming the forests themselves, for miles after miles on each side of
the rivers! How extensive appear the savannas or natural meadows,
teeming with innumerable herds of cattle, where the Portuguese and
Spaniards are settled, but desert as Saara where the English and Dutch
claim dominion! How gradually the face of the country rises! See the
sandhills all clothed in wood first emerging from the level, then hills
a little higher, rugged with bold and craggy rocks, peeping out from
amongst the most luxuriant timber. Then come plains and dells and
far-extending valleys, arrayed in richest foliage; and beyond them
mountains piled on mountains, some bearing prodigious forests, others
of bleak and barren aspect. Thus your eye wanders on over scenes of
varied loveliness and grandeur, till it rests on the stupendous
pinnacles of the long-continued Cordilleras de los Andes, which rise in
towering majesty and command all America.
How fertile must the low-lands be from the accumulation of fallen
leaves and trees for centuries! How propitious the swamps and slimy
beds of the rivers, heated by a downward sun, to the amazing growth of
alligators, serpents and innumerable insects! How inviting the forests
to the feathered tribes, where you see buds, blossoms, green and ripe
fruit, full grown and fading leaves all on the same tree! How secure
the wild beasts may rove in endless mazes! Perhaps those mountains,
too, which appear so bleak and naked, as if quite neglected, are, like
Potosi, full of precious metals.
Let us now return the pinions we borrowed from Icarus, and prepare to
bid farewell to the wilds. The time allotted to these wanderings is
drawing fast to a close. Every day for the last six months has been
employed in paying close attention to natural history in the forests of
Demerara. Above two hundred specimens of the finest birds have been
collected and a pretty just knowledge formed of their haunts and
economy. From the time of leaving England, in March 1816, to the
present day, nothing has intervened to arrest a fine flow of health,
saving a quartan ague which did not tarry, but fled as suddenly as it
appeared.
And now I take leave of thee, kind and gentle reader. The new mode of
preserving birds heretofore promised thee shall not be forgotten. The
plan is already formed in imagination, and can be penned down during
the passage across the Atlantic. If the few remarks in these wanderings
shall have any weight in inciting thee to sally forth and explore the
vast and well-stored regions of Demerara, I have gained my end. Adieu.
CHARLES WATERTON.
_April 6, 1817._
* * * * *
THIRD JOURNEY
Desertosque videre locos, littusque relictum.
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.
Shouldst thou have a leisure hour to read what follows, I pray thee
pardon the frequent use of that unwelcome monosyllable _I_. It could
not well be avoided, as will be seen in the sequel. In February 1820 I
sailed from the Clyde, on board the _Glenbervie_, a fine West-Indiaman.
She was driven to the north-west of Ireland, and had to contend with a
foul and wintry wind for above a fortnight. At last it changed, and we
had a pleasant passage across the Atlantic.
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 to their last resting-place.
After staying a few days in the town, I went up the Demerara to the
former habitation of my worthy friend Mr. Edmonstone, in Mibiri Creek.
The house had been abandoned for some years. On arriving at the hill,
the remembrance of scenes long past and gone naturally broke in upon
the mind. All was changed: the house was in ruins and gradually sinking
under the influence of the sun and rain; the roof had nearly fallen in;
and the room, where once governors and generals had caroused, was now
dismantled and tenanted by the vampire. You would have said:
'Tis now the vampire's bleak abode,
'Tis now the apartment of the toad:
'Tis here the painful chegoe feeds,
'Tis here the dire labarri breeds
Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds.
On the outside of the house Nature had nearly reassumed her ancient
right: a few straggling fruit-trees were still discernible amid the
varied hue of the near-approaching forest; they seemed like strangers
lost and bewildered and unpitied in a foreign land, destined to linger
a little longer, and then sink down for ever.
I hired some negroes from a woodcutter in another creek to repair the
roof; and then the house, or at least what remained of it, became
headquarters for natural history. The frogs, and here and there a
snake, received that attention which the weak in this world generally
experience from the strong, and which the law commonly denominates an
ejectment. But here neither the frogs nor serpents were ill-treated:
they sallied forth, without buffet or rebuke, to choose their place of
residence--the world was all before them. The owls went away of their
own accord, preferring to retire to a hollow tree rather than to
associate with their new landlord. The bats and vampires stayed with
me, and went in and out as usual.
It was upon this hill in former days that I first tried to teach John,
the black slave of my friend Mr. Edmonstone, the proper way to do
birds. But John had poor abilities, and it required much time and
patience to drive anything into him. Some years after this his master
took him to Scotland, where, becoming free, John left him, and got
employed in the Glasgow, and then the Edinburgh, Museum. Mr. Robert
Edmonstone, nephew to the above gentleman, had a fine mulatto capable
of learning anything. He requested me to teach him the art. I did so.
He was docile and active, and was with me all the time in the forest. I
left him there to keep up this new art of preserving birds and to
communicate it to others. Here, then, I fixed my headquarters, in the
ruins of this once gay and hospitable house. Close by, in a little hut
which, in times long past, had served for a store to keep provisions
in, there lived a coloured man and his wife, by name Backer. Many a
kind turn they did to me; and I was more than once a service to them
and their children, by bringing to their relief in time of sickness
what little knowledge I had acquired of medicine.
I would here, gentle reader, wish to draw thy attention, for a few
minutes, to physic, raiment and diet. Shouldst thou ever wander through
these remote and dreary wilds, forget not to carry with thee bark,
laudanum, calomel and jalap, and the lancet. There are no
druggist-shops here, nor sons of Galen to apply to in time of need. I
never go encumbered with many clothes. A thin flannel waistcoat under a
check shirt, a pair of trousers and a hat were all my wardrobe: shoes
and stockings I seldom had on. In dry weather they would have irritated
the feet and retarded me in the chase of wild beasts; and in the rainy
season they would have kept me in a perpetual state of damp and
moisture. I eat moderately, and never drink wine, spirits or fermented
liquors in any climate. This abstemiousness has ever proved a faithful
friend; it carried me triumphant through the epidemia at Malaga, where
death made such havoc about the beginning of the present century; and
it has since befriended me in many a fit of sickness brought on by
exposure to the noon-day sun, to the dews of night, to the pelting
shower and unwholesome food.
Perhaps it will be as well here to mention a fever which came on, and
the treatment of it: it may possibly be of use to thee, shouldst thou
turn wanderer in the tropics; a word or two also of a wound I got in
the forest, and then we will say no more of the little accidents which
sometimes occur, and attend solely to natural history. We shall have an
opportunity of seeing the wild animals in their native haunts,
undisturbed and unbroken in upon by man. We shall have time and leisure
to look more closely at them, and probably rectify some errors which,
for want of proper information or a near observance, have crept into
their several histories.
It was in the month of June, when the sun was within a few days of
Cancer, that I had a severe attack of fever. There had been a deluge of
rain, accompanied with tremendous thunder and lightning, and very
little sun. Nothing could exceed the dampness of the atmosphere. For
two or three days I had been in a kind of twilight state of health,
neither ill nor what you may call well: I yawned and felt weary without
exercise, and my sleep was merely slumber. This was the time to have
taken medicine, but I neglected to do so, though I had just been
reading: "O navis, referent in mare te novi fluctus, O quid agis?
fortiter occupa portum." I awoke at midnight: a cruel headache, thirst
and pain in the small of the back informed me what the case was. Had
Chiron himself been present he could not have told me more distinctly
that I was going to have a tight brush of it, and that I ought to meet
it with becoming fortitude. I dozed and woke and startled, and then
dozed again, and suddenly awoke thinking I was falling down a precipice.
The return of the bats to their diurnal retreat, which was in the
thatch above my hammock, informed me that the sun was now fast
approaching to the eastern horizon. I arose in languor and in pain, the
pulse at one hundred and twenty. I took ten grains of calomel and a
scruple of jalap, and drank during the day large draughts of tea, weak
and warm. The physic did its duty, but there was no remission of fever
or headache, though the pain of the back was less acute. I was saved
the trouble of keeping the room cool, as the wind beat in at every
quarter.