WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 169 



The house had been abandoned for some years. 

 On arriving at the hill, the remembrance of scenes 

 long past and gone naturally broke in upon the 

 mind. All was changed ; the house was in ruins, 

 and gradually sinking under the influence of the 

 sun and rain ; the roof had nearly fallen in ; and 

 the room where once governors and generals had 

 caroused, was now dismantled, and tenanted by 

 the vampire. You would have said, 



** 'Tia now the vampire's bleak abode, 

 'Tis now the apartment of the toad; 

 'Tia here the painful Chegoe feeds, 

 'Tis here the dire Labarri breeds, 

 Conceal 'd in ruins, moss, and weeds." 



On the outside of the house, nature had nearly 

 reassumed her ancient right: a few straggling 

 fruit-trees were still discernible amid the varied 

 hue of the near approaching forest ; they seemed 

 like strangers lost, and bewildered, and unpitied, 

 in a foreign land, destined to linger a little longer, 

 and then sink down for ever. 



I hired some negroes from a woodcutter in an- 

 other creek to repair the roof; and then the 

 house, or at least what remained of it, became 

 head-quarters for natural history. The frogs, and 

 here and there a snake, received that attention 

 which the weak in this world generally experience 

 from the strong, and which the law commonly de- 

 nominates an ejectment. But here, neither the 

 frogs nor serpents were ill-treated; they sallied 

 forth, without buffet or rebuke, to choose their 

 place of residence ; the world was all before them. 

 The owls went away of their own accord, prefer- 



