

WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 215 



while I was lying in the hammock, and harping on the 

 string on which hung all my solicitude, I hit upon the 

 proper mode by inference ; it appeared clear to me that it 

 was the only true way of going to work, and ere I closed 

 my eyes in sleep, I was able to prove to myself that there 

 could not be any other way that would answer. I tried it 

 the next day, and succeeded according to expectation. 



By means of this process, which is very simple, we can 

 now give every feature back again to the animal's face, 

 after it has been skinned ; and when necessary, stamp 

 grief, or pain, or pleasure, or rage, or mildness upon it. 

 But more of this hereafter. 



Let us now turn our attention to the Sloth, whose native 

 haunts have hitherto been so little known, and probably 

 little looked into. Those who have written on this singu- 

 lar animal, have remarked that he is in a perpetual state of 

 pain, that he is proverbially slow in his movements, that he 

 is a prisoner in space, and that as soon as he has consumed 

 all the leaves of the tree upon which he had mounted, he 

 rolls himself up in the form of a ball, and then falls to the 

 ground. This is not the case. 



If the naturalists who have written the history of the 

 sloth had gone into the -wilds, in order to examine his 

 haunts and economy, they would not have drawn the fore- 

 going conclusions ; they would have learned, that though 

 all other quadrupeds may be described while resting upon 

 the ground, the sloth is an exception to this rule, and that 

 his history must be written while he is in the tree. 



This singular animal is destined by nature to be pro- 

 duced, to live and to die in the trees ; and to do justice to 

 him, naturalists must examine him in this his upper ele- 

 ment. He is a scarce and solitary animal, and being good 

 food, he is never allowed to escape. He inhabits remote 

 and gloomy forests, where snakes take up their abode, and 



