BIOGRAPHY. 9 



understanding I was made rat-catcher to the establishment, 

 and also fox-taker, foumart-killer, and crossbow-charger at 

 the time when the young rooks were fledged. Moreover, 

 I fulfilled the duties of organ-blower and football-maker 

 with entire satisfaction to the public. 



" I was now at the height of my ambition. I followed 

 up my calling with great success. The vermin disap- 

 peared by the dozen ; the books were moderately well 

 thumbed ; and, according to my notion of things, all went 

 on perfectly right." 



One of those wise teachers did him an inestimable ser- 

 vice. He called the lad into his room, told him that his 

 roving disposition would carry him into distant countries, 

 and asked him to promise that from that time he would not 

 touch either wine or spirits. Waterton gave the promise, 

 and kept it to the hour of his death, more than sixty years 

 afterwards. Once, when returning from one of his foreign 

 expeditions, he took a glass of beer at dinner, but, finding 

 the taste, from long disuse, unpleasantly bitter, he put 

 down the glass and never touched beer again. 



At the age of eighteen he left Stonyhurst with much 

 regret, and after a year spent at Walton Hall amid the 

 pleasures of the field, he started on the first of his jour- 

 neys abroad. It was during the Peace of Amiens, and 

 Spain was chosen as the country which he should visit. 

 After staying a short time at Cadiz, he sailed for Malaga, 

 and had the good fortune to visit Gibraltar just in time 

 to see the celebrated apes. 



Gibraltar was the last place in Europe where apes lived 

 wild. How they got there no one knows, but Waterton 

 suggests in one of his Essays that they belonged originally 

 to Africa. 



" Let us imagine that, in times long gone by, the pre- 

 sent Rock of Gibraltar was united to the corresponding 



