468 Retrospective Criticism, 



and the fruit of the coucouaite tree. Perceiving that life was 

 ebbing fast, I asked the negro if he thought that I could 

 struggle through till daylight. " Ah ! massa," said he, " you 

 go dead in four hours more." " Then," said I, " when you 

 see me quite dead, throw my body out of the hammock, and 

 try to get back to the settlements." At this time, our ham- 

 mocks were suspended from stunted trees of miserable foliage, 

 a foot deep in water. The rain was falling in torrents ; while 

 the painted sheet, which I usually carried with me, afforded 

 little or no shelter : it had been rent and torn in a hurricane? 

 about a week before, on the top of a hill. 



Contrary to all expectations, nature rallied within me. 

 Six weeks after this, through orders misunderstood, I lost 

 my Indians; but the Portuguese, who had brought me and 

 my negro servant up from Fort St. Joachim to the river Pi- 

 rarara, succeeded in procuring me three Carib Indians, with 

 whom we could only converse by signs. Luckily for me, my 

 six Indians had all fallen sick, by being reduced to the neces- 

 sity of eating unwholesome food : I fell in with them, at a small 

 settlement of three huts, when I least expected ever seeing 

 them again. They were lying disabled in their hammocks, 

 whilst I myself was a mere skeleton, with four bad sores on 

 my legs and body, caused by the stings of venomous insects. 

 I was so wayworn, sick, and changed, that they scarcely knew 

 me on my return to the house of Mr. Edmonstone ; and three 

 months elapsed before I could carry a gun. In 1820, I was 

 eleven months in the forest, and never once tasted flesh or 

 fish all that time, or had a shoe or stocking to my foot. 



I studiously avoided mentioning this, and much more, in the 

 Wanderings, lest they should savour too strongly of self. Still, 

 it does not follow that R. B. is to be allowed to trump up 

 with impunity a malicious account to serve his own ends. 

 Indeed, he seems partly aware of his rashness, by remarking 

 that he has undertaken to write upon a subject " foreign to 

 his own views." Were there no friendly lips near, to whisper 

 «Ne sutor ?" 



I trust I have now made it clear that my only object, in 

 attacking works which bear the name of Audubon, was to 

 defend my own account of the vulture, which had been in 

 print some years before the works alluded to had made their 

 public appearance. 



Aware that I have put the patience of the reader to the 

 test, by saying things of myself which I never intended 

 should be told, I beg to present to them a few remarks on 

 the habits of the jackdaw [p. 394?.]. — Charles Waterton* 

 Walton Hall, July 7. 1833. 



