150 
WANDERINGS IN' 
THIRD 
JOURNEY. 
Lives in 
gloomy 
forests. 
exception to this rule, and that his history must he 
written while he is in the tree. 
This singular animal is destined by nature to be 
produced, to live, and to die in the trees; and to do 
justice to him, naturalists must examine him in this 
his upper element. He is a scarce and solitary 
animal, and being good food, he is never allowed to 
escape. He inhabits remote and gloomy forests, 
where snakes take up their abode, and where cruelly 
stinging ants and scorpions, and swamps, and innu¬ 
merable thorny shrubs and bushes, obstruct the steps 
of civilized man. Were you to draw your own con¬ 
clusions from the descriptions which have been given 
of the sloth, you would probably suspect, that no 
naturalist has actually gone into the wilds with the 
fixed determination to find him out and examine his 
haunts, and see whether nature has committed any 
blunder in the formation of this extraordinary crea¬ 
ture, which appears to us so forlorn and miserable, 
so ill put together, and so totally unfit to enjoy the 
blessings which have been so bountifully given to 
the rest of animated nature; for, as it has formerly 
been remarked, he has no soles to his feet, and he is 
evidently ill at ease when he tries to move on the 
ground, and it is then that he looks up in your face 
with a countenance that says, “ Have pity on me, 
for I am in pain and sorrow.” 
It mostly happens that Indians and Negroes are 
the people who catch the sloth, and bring it to the 
white man : hence it may be conjectured that the 
erroneous accounts we have hitherto had of the sloth. 
