262 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



the ball considerably larger than the one I had pro- 

 cured ; and, in order to put his roguery out of all 

 chance of detection, he made the last and outer coat 

 thicker than a dollar. This Indian would, no doubt, 

 have thriven well in some of our great towns. 



Finding that the rainy season was coming on, I left 



Returns home ^ ne w ilds of Demerara and Essequibo with 

 to England. jegcti, to wards the close of December, 1824, 

 and reached once more the shores of England, after a 

 long and unpleasant passage. 



Ere we part, kind reader, I could wish to draw a 



Concluding little of thy attention to the instructions 

 remarks. which are to be found at the end of this 



book. Twenty years have now rolled away since I 

 first began to examine the specimens of zoology in our 

 museums. As the system of preparation is founded in 

 error, nothing but deformity, distortion, and dispro- 

 portion will be the result of the best intentions and 

 utmost exertions of the workman. Canova's education, 

 taste, and genius enabled him to present to the world 

 statues so correct and beautiful, that they are worthy 

 of universal admiration. Had a common stone-cutter 

 tried his hand upon the block out of which these statues 

 were sculptured, what a lamentable want of symmetry 

 and fine countenance there would have been ! Now, 

 when we reflect that the preserved specimens in our 

 museums and private collections are always done upon 

 a wrong principle, and generally by low and illiterate 

 people, whose daily bread depends upon the shortness 

 of time in which they can get through their work and 

 whose opposition to the true way of preserving spe- 

 cimens can only be surpassed by their obstinacy in 

 adhering to the old method, can we any longer wonder 



