WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 171 



nor sons of Galen to apply to in time of need. I 

 never go encumbered with many clothes. A thin 

 flannel waistcoat under a check shirt, a pair of 

 trousers, and a hat, were all my wardrobe; shoes 

 and stockings I seldom had on. In dry weather 

 they would have irritated the feet, and retarded 

 me in the chase of wild beasts; and in the rainy 

 season they would have kept me in a perpetual 

 state of damp and moisture. I eat moderately, 

 and never drink wine, spirits, or fermented 

 liquors in any climate. This abstemiousness has 

 ever proved a faithful friend; it carried me 

 triumphant through the epidemia at Malaga, 

 where death made such havoc about the begin- 

 ning of the present century; and it has since 

 befriended me in many a fit of sickness, brought 

 on by exposure to the noon-day sun, to the dews 

 of night, to the pelting shower and unwholesome 

 food. 



Perhaps it will be as well, here, to mention a 

 fever which came on, and the treatment of it; it 

 may possibly be of use to thee, shouldst thou turn 

 wanderer in the tropics : a word or two also of a 

 wound I got in the forest, and then we will say 

 no more of the little accidents which sometimes 

 occur, and attend solely to natural history. We 

 shall have an opportunity of seeing the wild ani- 

 mals in their native haunts, undisturbed and un- 

 broken in upon by man. We shall have time and 

 leisure to look more closely at them, and probably 

 rectify some errors which, for want of proper 

 information or a near observance, have crept into 

 their several histories. 



It was in the month of June, when the sun was 



