256 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



shower, and returned to the hammock, to satisfy 

 the cravings of hunger, often on a poor and 

 scanty supper. 



These vicissitudes have turned to chestnut hue 

 a once English complexion, and changed the colour 

 of my hair, before Father Time had meddled with 

 it. The detention of the collection after it had 

 fairly passed the Customs, and the subsequent 

 order from the Treasury that I should pay duty 

 for the specimens, unless they were presented to 

 some public institution, have cast a damp upon 

 my energy, and forced, as it were, the cup of 

 Lethe to my lips, by drinking which I have forgot 

 my former intention of giving a lecture in public 

 on preparing specimens to adorn museums. In 

 fine, it is this ungenerous treatment that has par- 

 alyzed my plans, and caused me to give up the 

 idea I once had of inserting here the newly- 

 discovered mode of preparing quadrupeds and 

 serpents ; and without it, the account of this last 

 expedition to the wilds of Guiana is nothing but 

 a — fragment. 



Farewell, Gentle Beader. 



