WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AIMERICA 255 



ment, in the shape of exemption from paying the 

 duty on this collection, might have been expected ; 

 but it turned out otherwise ; and after expending 

 large sums in pursuit of natural history, on my 

 return home I was doomed to pay for my 

 success : — 



' ' Hie finis, Caroli f atorum, hie exitus ilium, 

 Sorte tulit ! ' ' 



Thus, my fleece, already ragged and torn with the 

 thorns and briers, which one must naturally ex- 

 pect to find in distant and untrodden wilds, was 

 shorn, I may say, on its return to England, 



However, this is nothing new; Sancho Panza 

 must have heard of similar cases; for he says, 

 ^'Muchos van por lana, y vuelven trasquilados;" 

 many go for wool, and come home shorn. In 

 order to pick up matter for natural history, I 

 have wandered through the wildest parts of South 

 America's equatorial regions. I have attacked 

 and slain a modern Python, and rode on the back 

 of a cayman close to the water's edge; a very 

 different situation from that of a Hyde-park 

 dandy on his Sunday prancer before the ladies. 

 Alone and barefoot I have pulled poisonous 

 snakes out of their lurking-places; climbed up 

 trees to peep into holes for bats and vampires, 

 and for days together hastened through sun and 

 rain to the thickest parts of the forest to procure 

 specimens I had never got before. In fine, I have 

 pursued the wild beasts over hill and dale, through 

 swamps and quagmires, now scorched by the 

 noon-day sim, now drenched by the pelting 



