BIOGRAPHY. is, 



that the Abyssntians ate beef raw in preference to cooked. 75* 

 Neither would they believe that Le Vafflant ever chased Cr ""~ t *- 

 a giraffe, because, as they said, there was no such Minnal, 

 and that therefore, Le Yaflknt could not hare seen it 



Similarly, some of TTaterton's statements were received 

 with a storm of derision, more especially his account <c<f 

 the doth and its strange way of living ; of the mode* of 

 handling deadly serpents, and above all, his ride on tie 

 back of a cayman. "There is however one honourafok 

 exception in the person of Sydney Smith, who devoted 

 one of his wittiest and happiest essays to a review of 

 the Wamdffrimgfs and fuHy recognized the extraordinary 

 powers of Waterton. 



According to Sydney Smith, Waterton " appears in early s^taty 

 life to have been staled with an unconquerable aversion to 

 Piccadilly, and to that train of meteorological questions 

 and answers which forms the great staple of polite eon- 



"The sun exhausted him by day, the mosquitos bit 

 him by night, but on went Mr. Charles Waterton. .... 

 happy that he had left his species far away, and is at last 

 in the midst of his blessed baboons." 



Nothing can be better than Sydney Smiths summary of 

 the life of a sloth, who "moves suspended, rests suspended, 

 sleeps suspended, and passes his whole life in suspense, 

 like a young clergyman distantly related to a bishop." 

 Or, than his simile of the box-tortoise and the boa, 

 who "swallows him shell and all, and consumes him 

 slowly in the interior, as the Court of Chancery does a 



Or, what can be happier than the turn he gives to 

 Waterloo's account of the toucan ? 



"How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature * 

 To what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the forests of 



G 2 



