Part 25

He then left the cabin, and I said to myself as he went out, I suspect I shall see that man again at Philippi. The boxes, ten in number, were conveyed in safety from the ship to the depôt. I then proceeded to the Custom House. The necessary forms were gone through, and a proportionate duty, according to circumstances, was paid.

This done, we returned from the Custom House to the depôt, accompanied by several gentlemen who wished to see the collection. They expressed themselves highly gratified. The boxes were closed, and nothing now remained but to convey them to the cart, which was in attendance at the door of the depôt. Just as one of the inferior officers was carrying a box thither, in stepped the man whom I suspected I should see again at Philippi. He abruptly declared himself dissatisfied with the valuation which the gentlemen of the customs had put upon the collection, and said he must detain it. I remonstrated, but it was all in vain.

After this pitiful stretch of power and bad compliment to the other officers of the customs, who had been satisfied with the valuation, this man had the folly to take me aside, and after assuring me that he had a great regard for the arts and sciences, he lamented that conscience obliged him to do what he had done, and he wished he had been fifty miles from Liverpool at the time that it fell to his lot to detain the collection. Had he looked in my face as he said this he would have seen no marks of credulity there.

I now returned to the Custom House, and after expressing my opinion of the officer's conduct at the depôt, I pulled a bunch of keys (which belonged to the detained boxes) out of my pocket, laid them on the table, took my leave of the gentlemen present, and soon after set off for Yorkshire.

I saved nothing from the grasp of the stranger officer but a pair of live Malay fowls, which a gentleman in Georgetown had made me a present of. I had collected in the forest several eggs of curious birds in hopes of introducing the breed into England, and had taken great pains in doing them over with gum arabic, and in packing them in charcoal, according to a receipt I had seen in the gazette from the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. But these were detained in the depôt, instead of being placed under a hen; which utterly ruined all my hopes of rearing a new species of birds in England. Titled personages in London interested themselves in behalf of the collection, but all in vain. And vain also were the public and private representations of the first officer of the Liverpool Custom House in my favour.

At last there came an order from the Treasury to say that any specimens Mr. Waterton intended to present to public institutions might pass duty free; but those which he intended to keep for himself must pay the duty! A friend now wrote to me from Liverpool requesting that I would come over and pay the duty in order to save the collection, which had just been detained there six weeks. I did so. On paying an additional duty (for the moderate duty first imposed had already been paid), the man who had detained the collection delivered it up to me, assuring me that it had been well taken care of, and that a fire had been frequently made in the room. It is but justice to add that on opening the boxes there was nothing injured.

I could never get a clue to these harsh and unexpected measures, except that there had been some recent smuggling discovered in Liverpool, and that the man in question had been sent down from London to act the part of Argus. If so, I landed in an evil hour: "nefasto die," making good the Spanish proverb, "Pagan a las veces, justos por pecadores": At times the innocent suffer for the guilty. After all, a little encouragement, in the shape of exemption from paying the duty on this collection, might have been expected, but it turned out otherwise; and after expending large sums in pursuit of natural history, on my return home I was doomed to pay for my success:

Hic finis, Caroli fatorum, hic exitus illum, Sorte tulit!

Thus my fleece, already ragged and torn with the thorns and briers which one must naturally expect to find in distant and untrodden wilds, was shorn, I may say, on its return to England.

However, this is nothing new. Sancho Panza must have heard of similar cases, for he says, "Muchos van por lana, y vuelven trasquilados": Many go for wool and come home shorn. In order to pick up matter for natural history I have wandered through the wildest parts of South America's equatorial regions. I have attacked and slain a modern Python, and rode on the back of a cayman close to the water's edge; a very different situation from that of a Hyde Park dandy on his Sunday prancer before the ladies. Alone and barefoot I have pulled poisonous snakes out of their lurking-places; climbed up trees to peep into holes for bats and vampires, and for days together hastened through sun and rain to the thickest parts of the forest to procure specimens I had never got before. In fine, I have pursued the wild beasts over hill and dale, through swamps and quagmires, now scorched by the noon-day sun, now drenched by the pelting shower, and returned to the hammock to satisfy the cravings of hunger, often on a poor and scanty supper.

These vicissitudes have turned to chestnut hue a once English complexion, and changed the colour of my hair before Father Time had meddled with it. The detention of the collection after it had fairly passed the Customs, and the subsequent order from the Treasury that I should pay duty for the specimens unless they were presented to some public institution, have cast a damp upon my energy, and forced, as it were, the cup of Lethe to my lips, by drinking which I have forgot my former intention of giving a lecture in public on preparing specimens to adorn museums. In fine, it is this ungenerous treatment that has paralysed my plans, and caused me to give up the idea I once had of inserting here the newly-discovered mode of preparing quadrupeds and serpents; and without it the account of this last expedition to the wilds of Guiana is nothing but a--fragment.

Farewell, gentle reader.

* * * * *

FOURTH JOURNEY

Nunc huc, nunc illuc et utrinque sine ordine curro.

Courteous reader, when I bade thee last farewell I thought these wanderings were brought to a final close; afterwards I often roved in imagination through distant countries famous for natural history, but felt no strong inclination to go thither, as the last adventure had terminated in such unexpected vexation. The departure of the cuckoo and swallow and summer birds of passage for warmer regions, once so interesting to me, now scarcely caused me to turn my face to the south; and I continued in this cold and dreary climate for three years. During this period I seldom or never mounted my hobby-horse; indeed, it may be said, with the old song,

The saddle and bridle were laid on the shelf,

and only taken down once, on the night that I was induced to give a lecture in the Philosophical Hall of Leeds. A little after this Wilson's Ornithology of the United States fell into my hands.

The desire I had of seeing that country, together with the animated description which Wilson had given of the birds, fanned up the almost-expiring flame. I forgot the vexations already alluded to, and set off for New York in the beautiful packet John Wells, commanded by Captain Harris. The passage was long and cold, but the elegant accommodations on board and the polite attention of the commander rendered it very agreeable; and I landed in health and merriment in the stately capital of the New World.

We will soon pen down a few remarks on this magnificent city, but not just now. I want to venture into the north-west country, and get to their great canal, which the world talks so much about, though I fear it will be hard work to make one's way through bugs, bears, brutes and buffaloes, which we Europeans imagine are so frequent and ferocious in these never-ending western wilds.

I left New York on a fine morning in July, without one letter of introduction, for the city of Albany, some hundred and eighty miles up the celebrated Hudson. I seldom care about letters of introduction, for I am one of those who depend much upon an accidental acquaintance. Full many a face do I see as I go wandering up and down the world whose mild eye and sweet and placid features seem to beckon to me and say, as it were, "Speak but civilly to me, and I will do what I can for you." Such a face as this is worth more than a dozen letters of introduction; and such a face, gentle reader, I found on board the steamboat from New York to the city of Albany.

There was a great number of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen in the vessel, all entire strangers to me. I fancied I could see several whose countenances invited an unknown wanderer to come and take a seat beside them; but there was one who encouraged me more than the rest. I saw clearly that he was an American, and I judged by his manners and appearance that he had not spent all his time upon his native soil. I was right in this conjecture, for he afterwards told me that he had been in France and England. I saluted him as one stranger gentleman ought to salute another when he wants a little information; and soon after I dropped in a word or two by which he might conjecture that I was a foreigner, but I did not tell him so; I wished him to make the discovery himself.

He entered into conversation with the openness and candour which is so remarkable in the American, and in a little time observed that he presumed I was from the old country. I told him that I was, and added that I was an entire stranger on board. I saw his eye brighten up at the prospect he had of doing a fellow-creature a kind turn or two, and he completely won my regard by an affability which I shall never forget. This obliging gentleman pointed out everything that was grand and interesting as the steamboat plied her course up the majestic Hudson. Here the Catskill Mountains raised their lofty summit; and there the hills came sloping down to the water's edge. Here he pointed to an aged and venerable oak which, having escaped the levelling axe of man, seemed almost to defy the blasting storm and desolating hand of Time; and there he bade me observe an extended tract of wood by which I might form an idea how rich and grand the face of the country had once been. Here it was that, in the great and momentous struggle, the colonists lost the day; and there they carried all before them:

They closed full fast, on every side No slackness there was found; And many a gallant gentleman Lay gasping on the ground.

Here, in fine, stood a noted regiment; there moved their great captain; here the fleets fired their broadsides; and there the whole force rushed on to battle:

Hic Dolopum manus, hic magnus tendebat Achilles, Classibus hic locus, hic acies certare solebat.

At teatime we took our tea together, and the next morning this worthy American walked up with me to the inn in Albany, shook me by the hand, and then went his way. I bade him farewell and again farewell, and hoped that Fortune might bring us together again once more. Possibly she may yet do so; and should it be in England, I will take him to my house as an old friend and acquaintance, and offer him my choicest cheer. It is at Albany that the great canal opens into the Hudson and joins the waters of this river to those of Lake Erie. The Hudson, at the city of Albany, is distant from Lake Erie about 360 miles. The level of the lake is 564 feet higher than the Hudson, and there are eighty-one locks on the canal. It is to the genius and perseverance of De Witt Clinton that the United States owe the almost incalculable advantages of this inland navigation: "Exegit monumentum ære perennius." You may either go along it all the way to Buffalo on Lake Erie or by the stage; or sometimes on one and then in the other, just as you think fit. Grand indeed is the scenery by either route and capital the accommodations. Cold and phlegmatic must he be who is not warmed into admiration by the surrounding scenery, and charmed with the affability of the travellers he meets on the way.

This is now the season of roving and joy and merriment for the gentry of this happy country. Thousands are on the move from different parts of the Union for the springs and lakes and the Falls of Niagara. There is nothing haughty or forbidding in the Americans; and wherever you meet them they appear to be quite at home. This is exactly what it ought to be, and very much in favour of the foreigner who journeys amongst them. The immense number of highly-polished females who go in the stages to visit the different places of amusement and see the stupendous natural curiosities of this extensive country incontestably proves that safety and convenience are ensured to them, and that the most distant attempt at rudeness would by common consent be immediately put down.