by CHARLES WATERTON. with an introduction by norman moore , m.d. Medallion CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: london , paris & melbourne . 1891....

Plutarch, the most famous biographer of ancient times, is of opinion that the uses of telling the history of the men of past ages are to teach wisdom, and to show us by their example how best to spend life.  His method is to relate the history of a Greek statesman or soldier, then the history of a Roman whose opportunities of fame resembled those of the Greek, and finally to compare the two.  He points out how in the same straits the one hero had shown wisdom, the other imprudence; and that he w

Muy Señor , Como no tengo el honor, de ser conocido de VM. lo pienso mejor, y mas decoroso, quedarme aqui, hastaque huviere recibido su respuesta.  Haviendo caminado hasta la chozo, adonde estoi, no quisiere volverme, antes de haver visto la fortaleza de los Portugueses; y pido licencia de VM. para que me adelante.  Honradissimos son mis motivos, ni tengo proyecto ninguno, o de comercio, o de la soldadesca, no siendo yo, o comerciante, o oficial.  Hidalgo catolico soy, de hacienda in Ynglatierra

“Incertus, quo fata ferant, ubi sistera detur.” Kind and gentle reader, if the journey in quest of the wourali-poison has engaged thy attention, probably thou mayst recollect that the traveller took leave of thee at Fort St. Joachim, on the Rio Branco.  Shouldst thou wish to know what befell him afterwards, excuse the following uninteresting narrative. Having had a return of fever, and aware that the farther he advanced into these wild and lonely regions the less would be the chance of regaining

In the year 1816, two days before the vernal equinox, I sailed from Liverpool for Pernambuco, in the southern hemisphere, on the coast of Brazil.  There is little at this time of the year in the European part of the Atlantic to engage the attention of the naturalist.  As you go down the Channel you see a few divers and gannets.  The middle-sized gulls, with a black spot at the end of the wings, attend you a little way into the Bay of Biscay.  When it blows a hard gale of wind the stormy petrel m

[24]   The negroes of the West Coast of Africa, as I am informed by Dr. Kodjoe Benjamin William Kwatei-kpakpafio, of Accra, take their names from the day of the week on which they are born: Quashi (Kwasi) is Sunday; Kodjoe, Monday; Koffie, Tuesday.—N. M. [31]   “Natural History Essays,” by Charles Waterton, edited, with a life of the author, by Norman Moore (Warne and Co.)....