CHARLES WATERTON 20a 



The Government would have nothing to say to thi& 

 " most intrepid " explorer, but he did at last get a 

 commission through a friend to penetrate Madagascar. 

 His star beckoned him : — 



" Come and show to the world that conscience and not crime has- 

 hitherto been the cause of your being kept in the background ^ 

 come into the national dockyard and refit your shattered bark 

 which has been cast on a lee-shore, where merciless wreck-seekers- 

 have plundered its stores." 



A tertian ague loomed up like a black cloud, and 

 " the star went down below the horizon, to appear 

 no more." 



Expeditions to Guiana to procure the Wourali poison,, 

 ■visits to Germany, Italy and Belgium followed. In 

 1825 he was in Bruges, when the Belgians were revolting 

 for religious liberty. As the balls whistled round, he 

 sought shelter at a half-open door. " Just as I arrived 

 at . the threshold a fat old dame shut the door full in. 

 my face. 'Thank you, old lady,' said I, Felix quam 

 faciunt aliena pericula cautam." The first part of the 

 memoir concludes with a discourse on death and his 

 own hairbreadth escapes in the jungle, alarming to 

 readers, but not to him, well fitted for them ("Would 

 a ' pampered menial ' storm the deadly breach ? 

 Would a gouty alderman descend the Rock of Ailsa,, 

 based by the roaring ocean, in quest of sea-fowls' 

 eggs ? "), remarks on religious toleration (" I think 

 I may venture to assure their reverences that I, for 

 one, will never use gunpowder in an unlawful way"),, 

 and a dirge on the National Debt. 



Part II opens with an account of how he rid hi& 

 estate of the "Hanoverian rat," whose depredations- 

 " exceeded those of Cacus." " In the year of grace,, 

 1839, the premises were cleared." After a learned 

 discourse on the Wourali poison, he now travels, with 

 a protest against the " unbecoming sneers " against 

 the Catholic religion conspicuous in nearly all books of 

 travel. He is a long while appreciating the storks in 

 Holland, until he breaks off in the middle of a sentence 

 with the remark that his intention was to present the- 



