4 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



in a direct line from Sir Thomas More, through 

 my grandmother; whilst by the mother's side I 

 am akin to the Bedingfelds of Oxburgh, to the 

 Charltons of Hazelside, and to the Swinburnes of 

 Capheaton. My family has been at Walton Hall 

 for some centuries. It emigrated into Yorkshire 

 from Waterton, in the island of Axeholme in Lin- 

 colnshire, where it had been for a very long time. 

 Indeed, I dare say I could trace it up to Father 

 Adam, if my progenitors had only been as careful 

 in preserving family records as the Arabs are in 

 recording the pedigree of their horses; for I do 

 most firmly believe that we are all descended from 

 Adam and his wife Eve, notwithstanding what 

 certain self-sufficient philosophers may have ad- 

 vanced to the contrary. Old Matt Prior had prob- 

 ably an opportunity of laying his hands on family 

 papers of the same purport as those which I have 

 not been able to find; for he positively informs 

 us that Adam and Eve were his ancestors : — 



'Gentlemen, here, by yo\ir leave, 



Lie the bones of Matthew Prior, 

 A son of Adam and of Eve: 



Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher?* 



Depend upon it, the man under Afric's burning 

 zone, and he from the frozen regions of the North, 

 have both come from the same stem. Their dif- 

 ference in colour and in feature may be traced to 

 this: viz., that the first has had too much, and 

 the second too little, sun. 



*'In remote times, some of my ancestors were 

 sufficiently notorious to have had their names 

 handed down to posterity. They fought at Cressy, 



