SOUTH AMERICA. 



advance he sighed as though in pain. Perhaps it 

 was, that by seeing him thus out of his element 

 as it were, that the count de Buffon, in his history 

 of the sloth, asks the question " why should not 

 some animals be created for misery, since, in the 

 human species, the greatest number of individuals 

 are devoted to pain from the moment of their 

 existence ?" Were the question put to me, I would 

 answer, I cannot conceive that any of them are 

 created for misery. That thousands live in misery 

 there can be no doubt ; but then, misery has over- 

 taken them in their path through life, and wherever 

 man has come up with them, I should suppose they 

 have seldom escaped from experiencing a certain 

 proportion of misery. 



After fully satisfying myself that it only leads 

 the world into error to describe the sloth while 

 he is on the ground, or in any place except in a 

 tree, I carried the one I had in my possession to 

 his native haunts. As soon as he came in contact 

 with the branch of a tree, all went right with him. 

 I could see as he climbed up into his own country, 

 that he was on the right road to happiness ; and 

 felt persuaded more than ever, that the world has 

 hitherto erred in its conjectures concerning the 

 sloth, on account of naturalists not having given 

 a description of him when he was in the only 

 position in which he ought to have been described, 

 namely, clinging to the branch of a tree. 



As the appearance of this part of the country 



297 



FOURTH 

 JOURNEY. 



