142 
WANDERINGS IN 
THIRD 
JOURNEY, 
Resi¬ 
dence at 
Mibiri 
creek. 
Con¬ 
verted 
into the 
author’s 
dwelling, 
passing down the streets, in slow and mute procession 
to their last resting-place. 
After staying a few days in the town, I went up 
the Demerara to the former habitation of my worthy 
friend, Mr. Edmonstone, in Mibiri creek. 
The house had been abandoned for some years. 
On arriving at the hill, the remembrance of scenes 
long past and gone, naturally broke in upon the 
mind. All was changed; the house was in ruins, 
and gradually sinking under the influence of the sun 
and rain ; the roof had nearly fallen in; and the 
room, where once governors and generals had ca¬ 
roused, was now dismantled, and tenanted by the 
vampire. You would have said, 
“ ’Tis now the vampire’s bleak abode, 
’Tis now the apartment of the toad; 
’Tis here the painful Chegoe feeds, 
’Tis here the dire Labarri breeds, 
Conceal’d in ruins, moss, and weeds.” 
On the outside of the house, nature had nearly 
re-assumed her ancient right: a few straggling fruit- 
trees were still discernible amid the varied hue of the 
near approaching forest; they seemed like strangers 
lost, and bewildered, and unpitied, in a foreign land, 
destined to linger a little longer, and then sink down 
for ever. 
I hired some negroes from a woodcutter in another 
creek to repair the roof; and then the house, or at 
least what remained of it, became head-quarters for 
natural history. The frogs, and here and there a 
snake, received that attention which the weak in this 
world generally experience from the strong, and 
