The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wanderings in South America, by Charles
Waterton

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Wanderings in South America

Author: Charles Waterton

Release Date: March 28, 2010 [eBook #31811]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA***

This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.

* * * * *

WANDERINGS
IN
SOUTH AMERICA.

BY
CHARLES WATERTON.

_WITH AN INTRODUCTION_
_BY_
_NORMAN MOORE_, _M.D._

[Picture: Medallion]

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
1891.

INTRODUCTION.

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
who had on one occasion fallen short of greatness had on another
displayed the highest degree of manly virtue or of genius. If Plutarch's
method of teaching should ever be followed by an English biographer, he
will surely place side by side and compare two English naturalists,
Gilbert White and Charles Waterton. White was a clergyman of the Church
of England, educated at Oxford. Waterton was a Roman Catholic country
gentleman, who received his education in a Jesuit college. White spent
his life in the south of England, and never travelled. Waterton lived in
the north of England, and spent more than ten years in the F