SOUTH AMERICA. 
145 
solely to natural history. We shall have an oppor¬ 
tunity of seeing the wild animals in their native 
haunts, undisturbed and unbroken in upon by man. 
We shall have time and leisure to look more closely 
at them, and probably rectify some errors which, for 
want of proper information, or a near observance, 
have crept into their several histories. 
It was in the month of June, when the sun was 
within a few davs of Cancer, that I had a severe 
attack of fever. There had been a deluge of rain, 
accompanied with tremendous thunder and light¬ 
ning, and very little sun. Nothing could exceed the 
dampness of the atmosphere. For two or three 
days I had been in a kind of twilight state of health, 
neither ill nor what you may call well; I yawned 
and felt weary without exercise, and my sleep was 
merely slumber. This was the time to have taken 
medicine; but I neglected to do so, though I had 
just been reading, “ O navis referent in mare te 
novi fluctus, O quid agis ? fortiter occupa portum.” 
I awoke at midnight; a cruel head-ach, thirst, and 
pain in the small of the back, informed me what the 
case was. Had Chiron himself been present, he 
could not have told me more distinctly that I was 
going to have a tight brush of it, and that I ought 
to meet it with becoming fortitude. I dozed, and 
woke, and startled, and then dozed again, and sud¬ 
denly awoke, thinking I was falling down a pre¬ 
cipice. 
The return of the bats to their diurnal retreat, 
which was in the thatch above my hammock, 
L 
THIRD 
JOURN KT. 
Severe 
attack of 
fever. 
