306 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



be as warm as tropical weather, and the close of day cold 

 and chilly. This must sometimes act with severity upon 

 the newly -arrived stranger ; and it requires more care and 

 circumspection than I am master of to guard against it 

 I contracted a bad and obstinate cough, which did not 

 quite leave me till I had got under the regular heat of the 

 sun, near the equator. 



I may be asked, was it all good fellowship and civility 

 during my stay in the United States? Did no forward 

 person cause offence ? was there no exhibition of drunken- 

 ness, or swearing, or rudeness ; or display of conduct which 

 disgraces civilized man in other countries ? I answer, very 

 few indeed: scarce any worth remembering, and none 

 worth noticing. These are a gentle and a civil people. 

 Should a traveller, now and then in the long run, witness 

 a few of the scenes elluded to, he ought not, on his return 

 home, to adduce a solitary instance or two, as the custom 

 of the country. In roving through the wilds of Guiana, I 

 have sometimes seen a tree hollow at heart, shattered and 

 leafless ; but I did not on that account condemn its 

 vigorous neighbours, and put down a memorandum that 

 the woods were bad ; on the contrary, I made allowances : 

 a thunder-storm, the whirlwind, a blight from heaven 

 might have robbed it of its bloom, and caused its present 

 forbidding appearance. And, in leaving the forest, I car- 

 ried away the impression, that though some few of the 

 trees were defective, the rest were an ornament to the 

 wilds, full of uses and virtues, and capable of benefiting 

 the world in a superior degree. 



A man generally travels into foreign countries for his 

 own ends ; and I suspect there is scarcely an instance to be 

 found of a person leaving his own home solely with the 

 intention of benefiting those amongst whom he is about to 

 travel. A commercial speculation, curiosity, a wish for 



