xlii 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
home once in three years, at farthest, and then all 
will go right/' I followed this admirable advice 
with great success : still, I used to think that I ran 
less risk of perishing in those unwholesome swamps 
than most other Europeans, as I never found the 
weather too hot, and I could go bareheaded under 
a nearly equatorial sun, without experiencing any 
inconvenience. Too often, however, might others 
have exclaimed with Admiral Hosier s ghost : — 
" Sent in this foul clime to languish, 
Think what thousands fall in vain, 
Wasted with disease and anguish. 
Not in glorious battle slain." 
I sailed from Portsmouth in the ship Fame, 
Captain Brand, on November 29. 1804, and landed 
at the town of Stabroek, in ci-devant Dutch Guiana, 
after a passage of about six weeks. I liked the 
country uncommonly, and administered to the es- 
tates till 1812; coming home at intervals, agreeably 
to the excellent and necessary advice which I had 
received from Sir Joseph Banks. In the month of 
April, 1812, my father and uncle being dead, I 
delivered over the estates to those concerned in 
them, and never more put foot upon them. 
In my subsequent visits to Guiana, having no 
other object in view than that of natural history, 
I merely stayed a day or two in the town of Stabroek 
(now called George Town), to procure what ne- 
cessaries I wanted ; and then I hastened up into 
the forests of the interior, as the Wanderings will 
show. 
Whilst I was on the estates, I had the finest 
