BIOGEAPHY. 21 



from personal observation, and not one single statement of 

 his has ever been proved to be exaggerated, much less 

 shown to be false. He might sometimes discredit the 

 statements of others. For example, he never could 

 believe that any races of men could be cannibals from 

 choice, and not from necessity or superstition. But, 

 whether at home or abroad, his investigations were so 

 close and patient, and his conclusions so just, that he is 

 now acknowledged to be a guide absolutely safe in any 

 department of Natural History which came within his 

 scope. No one now would think of disputing Waterton's 

 word. If he denied or even doubted the statements of 

 others, his doubts would have great weight, and could 

 lead to a closer investigation of the subject. But, if he 

 asserted anything to be a fact, his assertion would be 

 accepted without scruple. 



As to the meaning of the sentence about truth and 

 fiction, I fail to understand it, except as a poetical way of 

 rounding a paragraph. In the first place, if truth be truth, 

 it is essentially opposed to fiction, and cannot borrow her 

 garb. In the next place, the writer gives no instance of 

 this remarkable performance, except a reference to the 

 capture of the cayman. Now, nothing can be simpler or 

 more straightforward than Waterton's account of the whole 

 transaction. He does not glorify himself, nor boast of his 

 courage. He leaped astride the animal, being sure, from a 

 knowledge of its structure, that he could not be reached 

 by the cayman's only weapons, namely, its teeth and its 

 tail, and he never repeated the feat. 



Even the peculiar style in which Waterton wrote, could 

 not justify such a charge as was made by Swainson. 



It was, perhaps unconsciously, formed on that of Sterne, 

 many of whose phrases are employed almost verbatim. 

 Then, his mind was saturated with Horace, Virgil, Ovid, 



