32 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



think that I ran less risk of perishing in those unwholesome swamps 

 than most other Europeans, as I never found the weather too hot, 

 and I could go bareheaded under a nearly equatorial sun without 

 experiencing any inconvenience. Too often, however, might others 

 have exclaimed with Admiral Hosier's ghost : 



' Sent in this foul clime to languish ; 



Think what thousands fall in vain, 

 Wasted with disease and anguish, 

 Not in glorious battle slain.' 



" I sailed from Portsmouth in the ship Fame^ Captain Brand, on 

 November 29, 1804, and landed at the town of Stabroek, in ci-devant 

 Dutch Guiana, after a passage of about six weeks. I liked the 

 country uncommonly, and administered to the estates till 1812 : 

 coming home at intervals, agreeably to the excellent and necessary 

 advice which I had received from Sir Joseph Banks. In the month 

 of April, 1812, my father and uncle being dead, I delivered over the 

 estates to those concerned in them, and never more put foot upon 

 them. In my subsequent visits to Guiana, having no other object 

 in view than that of Natural History, I merely stayed a day or two in 

 the town of Stabroek (now called George Town), to procure what 

 necessaries I wanted ; and then I hastened up into the forests of 

 the interior, as the ' Wanderings J will show. Whilst I was on the 

 estates, I had the finest opportunity in the world of examining the 

 water-fowl of Guiana : they were in vast abundance all along the 

 sea-shore, and in the fresh-water swamps behind the plantations. 

 No country in the world can offer a more extensive and fertile field 

 to the ornithologist, than our celebrated colony of Demerara. 



" Notwithstanding the most guarded sobriety and abstinence on 

 my part, the fever and ague would at times assault me with great 

 obstinacy. The attacks could always be traced to my getting wet, 

 and remaining in my wet clothes until the sun had dried them ; a 

 custom never to be sufficiently condemned in any country. But, as 

 Fene'lon remarks, ' La jeunesse est pre'somptueuse : elle se promet 

 tout d'elle-meme ; quoique fragile, elle croit pouvoir tout, et n'avoir 

 jamais rein a craindre : elle se confie legerement, et sans pre- 

 caution.' 



" When the ague came on to any serious extent, I would go up to 



