SOUTH AMERICA. 309 



restore the natural features to stuffed animals ; FOURTU 



JOURNEY. 



and he who has any doubts of this, let him take 

 a living cat or dog, and compare them with 

 a stuffed cat or dog in any of the first-rate 

 museums. A momentary glance of the eye would 

 soon settle his doubts on this head. 



If I have succeeded in effacing the features of 

 a brute, and putting those of a man in their 

 place, we might be entitled to say, that the sun 

 of Proteus has risen to our museums : 



" Unius hie faciem, facies transformat in omnes ; 

 Nunc homo, nunc tigris ; nunc equa, mine mulier." 



If I have effected this, we can now give to one 

 side of the skin of a man's face the appearance 

 of eighty years, and to the other side that of 

 blooming seventeen. We could make the fore- 

 head and eyes serene in youthful beauty, and 

 shape the mouth and jaws to the features of a 

 malicious old ape. Here is a new field opened 

 to the adventurous and experimental naturalist : 

 I have trodden it up and down till I am almost 

 weary. To get at it myself I have groped through 

 an alley, which may be styled, in the words of 

 Ovid, 



" Arduus, obliquus, caligine densus opaca." 



I pray thee, gentle reader, let me out awhile. 

 Time passes on apace ; and I want to take thee 

 to have a peep at the spots where mines are 

 supposed to exist in Guiana. As the story of 

 this singular head has, probably, not been made 



