LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 47 



sense of the term. This honest stand against a conventional folly 

 was at first considered extraordinary : his guests soon found that 

 where there was the least show there was the kindliest welcome. 

 The simple table of Walton became famous for its geniality, its 

 social ease, and its pleasant conversation. All who came, and they 

 were many, felt that it had a charm far above that of costlier feasts. 



During the twenty years which followed his succession to Walton 

 Hall, Waterton made four journeys to the New World in quest of 

 Natural History. The first journey was in 1812, when he travelled 

 into the interior of Guiana partly for exploring purposes, and partly 

 to obtain some pure wourali poison. Since the days of Sir Walter 

 Raleigh the wilds of Guiana had been but little disturbed by Euro- 

 pean footsteps. That scholarly marauder sought in the east of South 

 America what Pizarro had found in the west. It was an old tradition 

 of the Indians that far in the depths of the primeval forest, between 

 the Orinoco and the Amazons, was a great inland sea, Lake Parima, 

 upon whose shores stood the ancient and wealthy city of El Dorado. 

 To lead captive the princes of El Dorado, and to rifle their golden 

 hoards, was the object of Raleigh. Ambition and lust of gain urged 

 him to penetrate those remote regions. He failed, and the melancholy 

 history of his captivity and cruel death have thrown a veil over his 

 crimes. The motives of his successor in travel were different. 

 Alone, unaided, without hope of gain, Waterton tracked those path- 

 less wilds. He knew that the towers of El Dorado were but castles 

 in the air : he sought to find out if Lake Parima was also a myth. 



This, however, was but a minor purpose of his journey. His main 

 design was to collect a quantity of the wourali poison. This famous 

 composition is used by the Indians of Guiana to envenom their 

 arrows, and the history of its deadly effect was one of the astonish- 

 ing tales which the early voyagers across the Atlantic told to wonder- 

 ing listeners on their return. It seemed possible that a substance 

 so powerful might have medicinal virtues. The forests of South 

 America had already yielded a drug of superlative value. A worth- 

 less-looking substance, which the Jesuit missionaries stripped from 

 the trees in the woods, turned out a more beneficent treasure than 

 that gold which was at once the hope, the prize, and the bane of the 

 warrior conquerors. The golden wealth of America led to the depopu- 



