3642 Natural-History Collectors. 



constantly wet with the spray, and having no place to lie down com- 

 fortably, it may be supposed that we did not sleep very soundly at 

 night. For food we did very well, having plenty of biscuit and salt 

 pork, — raw, of course, — which we found very palatable, with a little 

 water to wash it down. After a week, having seen no vessel, we put 

 ourselves on short allowance of water, and then suffered much from 

 thirst ; and as we now were in a part celebrated for squalls and hur- 

 ricanes, every shift in the wind and change of the sky was most anx- 

 iously watched by us. At length, after ten days and nights we heard 

 the joyful cry of " Sail ho ! " and by a few hours' hard rowing got on 

 board the " Jordeson" from Cuba, bound for London, in lat. 32 p 48' N., 

 long. 60° 27' W., being still about 200 miles from Bermuda. 



We now had a very tedious voyage, and soon got to be very short 

 of provisions, the crew being doubled by our arrival : in fact, had not 

 two vessels assisted us with provisions at different times, we should 

 actually have starved ; and as it was, for a considerable time we had 

 nothing but biscuit and water. We encountered three very heavy 

 gales, which split and carried away some of the strongest sails in the 

 ship, and made her leak so much that the pumps could with difficulty 

 keep her free. On the 1st of October, however, we were safely landed 

 at Deal, eighty days after we left Para. 



The only things which I saved were my watch, my drawings of 

 fishes, and a portion of my notes and journals. Most of my journals, 

 notes on the habits of animals, and drawings of the transformations of 

 insects, were lost. 



My collections were mostly from the country about the sources of 

 the Rio Negro and Orinooko, one of the wildest and least known parts 

 of South America, and their loss is therefore the more to be regretted. 

 I had a fine collection of the river tortoises (Chelydidae) consisting of 

 ten species, many of which I believe were new. Also upwards of a 

 hundred species of the little known fishes of the Rio Negro : of these 

 last, however, and of many additional species, I have saved my draw- 

 ings and descriptions. My private collection of Lepidoptera contain- 

 ed illustrations of all the species and varieties 1 had collected at San- 

 tarem, Montalegre, Barra, the Upper Amazons, and the Rio Negro : 

 there must have been at least a hundred new and unique species. 1 

 had also a number of curious Coleoptera, several species of ants in 

 all their different states, and complete skeletons and skins of an ant- 

 eater and cow-fish, {Manatus) ; the whole of which, together with a 

 small collection of living monkeys, parrots, macaws, and other birds, 

 are irrecoverably lost. 



