130 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



The house had been abandoned for some years. On 

 arriving at the hill, the remembrance of scenes long past 

 and gone, naturally broke in upon the mind. All was 

 changed ; the house was in ruins, and gradually sinking 

 under the influence of the sun and rain ; the roof had 

 nearly fallen in ; and the room, where once governors 

 and generals had caroused, was now dismantled, and 

 tenanted by the vampire. You would have said, 



" "Tis now the vampire's bleak abode, 

 'Tis now the apartment of the toad ; 

 'Tis here the painful Cliegoe feeds, 

 'Tis here the dire Labarri breeds, 

 Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds." 



On the outside of the house, nature had nearly re- 

 assumed her ancient right : a few straggling fruit-trees 

 were still discernible amid the varied hue of the near 

 approaching forest ; they seemed like strangers lost, and 

 bewildered, and unpitied, in a foreign land, destined to 

 linger a little longer, and then sink down for ever. 



I hired some negroes from a woodcutter 



Conrerted into . 



the author's in another creek to repair the roof ; and 

 then the house, or at least what remained of 

 it, became head-quarters for natural history. The frogs, 

 and here and there a snake, deceived that attention 

 which the weak in this world generally experience 

 from the strong, and which the law commonly denomi- 

 nates an ejectment. But here, neither the frogs nor 

 serpents were ill-treated ; they sallied forth, without 

 buffet or rebuke, to choose their place of residence; 

 the world was all before them. The owls went away 

 of their own accord, preferring to retire to a hollow 

 tree rather than to associate with their new landlord. 

 The bats and vampires stayed with me, and went in and 

 out as usual. 



