THIRD JOURNEY. 



137 



that thoTigli all other quadrupeds may be described 

 while resting upon the ground, the sloth is an exception 

 to this rule, and that his history must be written while 

 he is in the tree. 



This singular animal is destined by nature to be pro- 

 duced, to live, and to die in the trees; and to do justice 

 to him, naturalists must examine him in this his upper 

 element. He is a scarce and solitary animal, and being 

 good food, he is never allowed to escape. He inhabits 

 remote and gloomy forests, where snakes take 



Lives m . 



gloomy fo- up their abode, and where cruelly stinging 

 ants and scorpions, and swamps, and innu- 

 merable thorny shrubs and bushes, obstruct the steps 

 of civilized man. Were you to draw your own con- 

 clusions from the descriptions which have been given 

 of the sloth, you would probably suspect, that no 

 naturalist has actually gone into the wilds with the 

 fixed determination to find him out and examine his 

 haunts, and see whether nature has committed any 

 blunder, in the formation of this extraordinary creature, 

 which appears to us so forlorn and miserable, so ill put 

 together, and so totally unfit to enjoy the blessings 

 which have been so bountifully given to the rest of 

 animated nature; for, as it has formerly been remarked, 

 he has no soles to his feet, and he is evidently ill at 

 ease when he tries to move on the ground, and it is 

 then that he looks up in your face with a countenance 

 that says, ^^Have pity on me, for I am in pain and 

 sorrow." 



It mostly happens that Indians and Negroes are the 

 people who catch the sloth, and bring it to the white 

 man : hence it may be conjectured that the erroneous 

 accounts we have hitherto had of the sloth, have not 



