282 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



tion which the gentlemen of the Customs had put upon 

 the collection, and said he must detain it. I remonstrated, 

 but it was all in vain. 



After this pitiful stretch of power, and bad compliment 

 to the other officers of the Customs, who had been satisfied 

 with the valuation, this man had the folly to take me 

 aside, and after assuring me that he had a great regard for 

 the arts and sciences, he lamented that conscience obliged 

 him to do what he had done, and he wished he had been 

 fifty miles from Liverpool at the time that it fell to his 

 lot to detain the collection. Had he looked in my face as 

 he said this, he would have seen no marks of credulity 

 there. 



I now returned to the Custom-house, and after ex- 

 pressing my opinion of the officer's conduct at the depot, 

 I pulled a bunch of keys (which belonged to the detained 

 boxes) out of my pocket, laid them on the table, took my 

 leave of the gentlemen present, and soon after set off for 

 Yorkshire. 



I saved nothing from the grasp of the stranger officer 

 but a pair of live Malay fowls, which a gentleman in 

 Georgetown had made me a present of. I had collected 

 in the forest several eggs of curious birds, in hopes of 

 introducing the breed into England, and had taken great 

 pains in doing them over with gum-arabic, and in packing 

 them in charcoal, according to a receipt I had seen in the 

 gazette, from the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. But 

 these were detained in the depot, instead of being placed 

 under a hen ; which utterly ruined all my hopes of rearing 

 a new species of birds in England. Titled personages in 

 London interested themselves in behalf of the collection, 

 but all in vain. And vain also were the public and 

 private representations of the first officer of the Liverpool 

 Custom-house in my favour. 



