FOURTH JOURNEY. 



233 



the sudden changes of the atmosphere. The noon 

 would often be as warm as tropical weather, 

 and the close of day cold and chilly. This 

 must sometimes act with severity upon the newly- 

 arrived stranger ; and it requires more care and circum- 

 spection than I am master of to guard against it. I 

 contracted a bad and obstinate cough, which did not 

 quite leave me till I had got under the regular heat 

 of the sun, near the equator. 



I may be asked, Was it all good fellowship and 

 civility during my stay in the United States i 

 Did no forward person cause offence? was 

 there no exhibition of drunkenness, or swearing, or 

 rudeness ; or display of conduct which disgraces civilized 

 man in other countries 1 I answer, very few indeed : 

 scarce any worth remembering, and none worth noticing. 

 These are a gentle and a civil people. Should a tra- 

 veller, now and then in the long run, witness a few of 

 the scenes alluded to, he ought not, on his return home, 

 to adduce a solitary instance or two, as the custom of 

 the country. In roving through the wilds of Guiana, 

 I have sometimes seen a tree hollow at heart, shattered 

 and leafless ; but I did not on that account condemn 

 its vigorous neighbours, and put down a memorandum 

 that the woods were bad. On the contrary, I made 

 allowances : a thunder-storm, the whirlwind, a blight 

 from heaven, might have robbed it of its bloom, and 

 caused its present forbidding appearance. And, in 

 leaving the forest, I carried away the impression, that 

 though some few of the trees were defective, the rest 

 were an ornament to the wilds, full of uses and virtues, 

 and capable of benefiting the world in a superior 

 degree. 



