WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 211 



jalap, and the lancet. There are no druggist shops here, 

 nor sons of Galen to apply to in time of need. I never go 

 encumbered with many clothes. A thin flannel waistcoat 

 under a check shirt, a pair of trousers, and a hat, were all 

 my wardrobe ; shoes and stockings I seldom had on. In 

 dry weather they would have irritated the feet, and retarded 

 me in the chase of wild beasts ; and in the rainy season 

 they would have kept me in a perpetual state of damp and 

 moisture. I eat moderately, and never drink wine, spirits, 

 or fermented liquors in any climate. This abstemiousness 

 has eiver proved a faithful friend ; it carried me triumphant 

 through the epidemia at Malaga, where deatli made such 

 havoc about the begmning of the present century ; and it 

 has since befriended me in many a fit of sickness, brought 

 on by exposure to the noon-day sun, to the dews of night, 

 to the pelting shower and unwholesome food. 



Perhaps it will be as well, here, to mention a fever which 

 came on, and the treatment of it; it may possibly be of use 

 to thee, shouldst thou turn wanderer in the tropics : a word 

 or two also of a wound I got in the forest, and then we will 

 say no more of the little accidents which sometimes occur, 

 and attend solely to natural history. We shall have an op- 

 portunity of seeing the wild animals in their native haunts, 

 undisturbed and unbroken in upon by man. We shall 

 have time and leisure to look more closely at them, and 

 probably rectify some errors which, for want of proper in- 

 formation or a near observance, have crept into their 

 several histories. 



It was in the month of June, when the sun was within 

 a few days of Cancer, that I had a severe attack of fever. 

 There had been a deluge of rain, accompanied with tre- 

 mendous thunder and lightning, and very little sun. 

 Nothing could exceed the dampness of the atmosphere. 

 For two or three days I had been in a kind of twilight 



p 2 



