SOUTH AMERICA. 4-9 



you at a certain distance from the fort, where we FIR8T 



JOURNKY. 



can consult together." 



We had now arrived at the place, and the 

 canoe which brought the letter returned to the 

 fort, to tell the commander I had fallen sick. 



The sun had not risen above an hour the morn- 

 ing after, when the Portuguese officer came to 

 the spot where we had landed the preceding 

 evening. He was tall and spare, and appeared 

 to be from fifty to fifty-five years old ; and 

 though thirty years of service under an equato- 

 rial sun had burnt and shrivelled up his face, still 

 there was something in it so inexpressibly affable 

 and kind, that it set you immediately at your 

 ease. He came close up to the hammock, and 

 taking hold of my wrist to feel the pulse, " I am 

 sorry, Sir," said he, " to see that the fever has 

 taken such hold of you. You shall go directly 

 with me," continued he, " to the fort ; and though 

 we have no doctor there,*! trust," added he, "we 

 shall soon bring you about again. The orders 

 I have received forbidding the admission of 

 strangers, were never intended to be put in force 

 against a sick English gentleman." 



As the canoe was proceeding slowly down the 

 river towards the fort, the commander asked, 

 with much more interest than a question in or- 

 dinary conversation is asked, where was I on the 

 night of the first of May ? On telling him that I 

 was at an Indian settlement a little below the 



