the
forest. It had once been rich in fruit and flowers, gums and odours,
and all in the same season; and though it was now scathed at the top,
hollow in the trunk, and was threatened with total ruin from the first
hurricane, we still preferred it, because it _was_ the oldest. I owed
all my early impressions, and much of my acquired superiority, to my
great grandfather, who lived to an extreme old age, and attained a
celebrity, of which we were ourselves at that time unaware. He was
the identical bird which was brought from Marignan to Prince Maurice,
governor of the Brazils, and whose pertinent answers to many silly
questions are recorded in the pages of the greatest of English
philosophers. My great grandfather was soon disgusted with the folly
and cruelty of what is called civilized life; and having seen an Indian
roasted alive for a false religion's sake, he thought that some day they
might take it into their heads to do as much by a macaw, for the same
reason. So he availed himself of an early opportunity of retiring
without leave from the service, and returned to his native forest, where
his genius and learning at once raised him to the highest honours of
the Psittacan aristocracy. Influenced by his example, I early felt the
desire of visiting foreign countries. My mother too (who, though fond
and indulgent, like all the mothers of our race, was as vain and foolish
as any that I have since met with in human society) worked powerfully
on my ambition, by her constant endeavours to "push me up the tree,"
as she called it, in her way. I was already a first-rate orator, and a
member of the great congress of macaws; while in our social re-unions
I left all the young birds of fashion far behind me: and as I not only
articulated some human sounds picked up from the Indians, but could
speak a few words of Portuguese and Dutch, learned by rote from my great
grandfather, I was considered a genius of high order. With the conceit,
therefore, of all my noble family, I was prompted to go forth and visit
other and better worlds, and to seek a sphere better adapted to the
display of my presumed abilities, than that afforded by our domestic
senate and home-spun society. On one of those celestial nights, known
only in the tropical regions, I set forth on my travels, directing my
course to the Portuguese settlement, which the youthful vigour of my
wing enabled me to reach by the break of morning. Having refreshed
myself with a breakfas