164 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



mock fresh as tlie April lark. Be convinced also, 

 that the dangers and difficulties which are gener- 

 ally supposed to accompany the traveller in his 

 journey through distant regions, are not half so 

 numerous or dreadful as they arQ 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 

 civilized 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 head- 

 long into it. 



But the dangers which a traveller exposes him- 

 self to in foreign parts are novel, out of the way 

 things to a man at home. The remotest apprehen- 

 sion of meeting a tremendous tiger, of being car- 

 ried 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 burst- 

 ing of a bomb- shell. Thank Heaven, he is safe by 

 his own fire-side ! 



Prudence and resolution ought to be the trav- 

 eller'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 



