30 



southern parts of the vast continent of Ame- 

 rica, yet unpenetrated and unseen. 



It may now be asked, whether I have in 

 this memoir, gratified the expectations of the 

 public? Whether 1 have shed any light on a 

 subject hitherto involved in gloom? And 

 whether I have given all the information which 

 your curiosity may demand, your reason sug- 

 gest, or your fancy require? Too well con- 

 vinced of the limits of the human understand- 

 ing, and of the bounds set to my OAvn, 1 dare 

 not answer in the affirmative. Much may have 

 escaped my observation and my research: being 

 engaged in travel for several years, or living in 

 parts destitute of books and improved associa- 

 tions, I was denied the assistance, drawn by 

 other naturalists, from such materials, and was 

 compelled to give you unembellished sugges- 

 tions of my own mind — a mind injured by amal- 

 gamation with inhabitants of untutored wastes, 

 where sensibility to grace is soon lost, where fe- 

 licity of style cannot be gained, and where liter- 

 ary pursuits become at length forgotten I 



To merit indulgence, I shall exert all my 

 energies to give my next memoir the interest 



