WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 209 • 



At last it changed, and we had a pleasant passage across 

 the Atlantic. 



Sad and mournful was the story we heard on entering 

 the river Demerara. The yellow fever had swept off 

 numbers of the old inhabitants, and the mortal remains of 

 many a new comer were daily passing down the streets, in 

 slow and mute procession to their last resting-place. 



After staying a few days in the town, I went up the 

 Demerara to the former habitation of my worthy friend, 

 Mr. Edmonstone, in Mibiri creek. 



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 Chegoe 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 approach- 

 ing 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 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, received that 



P 



