XVlli INTRODUCTION. 
eurfelves^ at too great a diftance from them, and 
difcovering that we muft openly fhow ourfelves, we 
had no other alternative to effect our purpofe, but 
making oblique approaches. We gained gradually 
on our prey by this artifice, without their noticing 
us : finding ourfeives near enough, the hunter fired, 
and laid the largeft dead on the fpot where ihe 
flood; when prefently the other, not feeming the 
leaft moved at the report of our piece, approached 
the dead body, fmelled, and pawed it, and ap- 
pearing in agony, fell to weeping and looking up- 
wards, then towards us, and cried out like a child. 
Whilft our boat approached very near, the hunter 
was loading his rifle in order to fhoot the furvivor, 
which was a young cub, and the flain fuppofed to 
be the dam. The continual cries of this affiidled 
child, bereft of its parent, affedled me very fenfi- 
hiy; I was moved with compaffion, and charging 
xnyfelf as if adceffary to what now appeared to 
be a cruel murder, endeavoured to prevail on the 
hunter to fave its life, but to no effedt ! for by 
habit he had become infenfible to compaffion to- 
wards the brute creation : being now within a few 
yards of the harmlefs devoted vidtim, he fired, and 
laid it dead upon the body of the dam. 
If we beftow but very little attention to the 
economy of the animal creation, we fhall find ma~ 
nifeft examples of premeditation, perfeverance, re- 
folution, and confummate artifice, in order to effedt 
their purpofes. The next morning, after the daughter 
of the bears, whilft my companions were ftriking 
our tent and preparing to re-embark, I refolved to 
make a little botanical excurfion alone: croffing 
over a narrow ifthmus of land hills which feparated 
the river from the ocean, I palled over a pretty 
high hill, its fummit crefted with a few palm trees, 
furrounded 
