CHARLES WATERTON 20& 



The Government would have nothing to say to this 

 " most intrepid " explorer, but he did at last get a 

 commission through a friend to penetrate Madagascar. 

 His star beckoned him : 



*' Come and show to the world that conscience and not crime has 

 hitherto been the cause of your being kept in the background ; 

 come into the national dockyard and refit your shattered bark 

 which has been cast on a lee-shore, where merciless wreck-seekers 

 have plundered its stores." 



A tertian ague loomed up like a black cloud, and 

 " the star went down below the horizon, to appear 

 no more." ' 



Expeditions to Guiana to procure the Wourali poison, 

 visits to Germany, Italy and Belgium followed. In 

 1825 he was in Bruges, when the Belgians were revolting 

 for religious liberty. As the balls whistled round, he 

 sought shelter at a half-open door. " Just as I arrived 

 at the threshold a fat old dame shut the door full in 

 my face. * Thank you, old lady,' said I, Felix quam 

 faciunt aliena pericula cautam." The first part of the 

 memoir concludes with a discourse on death and his 

 own hairbreadth escapes in the jungle, alarming to 

 readers, but not to him, well fitted for them ("Would 

 a ' pampered menial ' storm the deadly breach ? 

 Would a gouty alderman descend the Rock of Ailsa, 

 based by the roaring ocean, in quest of sea-fowls' 

 e g s ?")> remarks on religious toleration ("I think 

 I may venture to assure their reverences that I, for 

 one, will never use gunpowder in an unlawful way'% 

 and a dirge on the National Debt. 



Part II opens with an account of how he rid his 

 estate of the "Hanoverian rat," whose depredations 

 " exceeded those of Cacus." " In the year of grace, 

 1839, the premises were cleared." After a learned 

 discourse on the Wourali poison, he now travels, with 

 a protest against the " unbecoming sneers " against 

 the Catholic religion conspicuous in nearly all books of 

 travel. He is a long while appreciating the storks in 

 Holland, until he breaks off in the middle of a sentence 

 with the remark that his intention was to present the- 



