d across
the Alps and the Apennines, and returned home, but could not tarry.
Guiana still whispered in my ear, and seemed to invite me once more to
wander through her distant forests. In February, 1820, I sailed from the
Clyde, on board the Glenbervie, a fine West Indiaman.

Sad and mournful was the story we heard on entering the river Demerara.
The yellow fever had swept off numbers of the old inhabitants, and the
mortal remains of many a new comer were daily passing down the streets,
in slow and mute procession.

I myself was soon attacked severely by the fever, but was fortunate
enough to recover after much suffering. Next I was wounded painfully in
the foot by treading on a hard stump, while pursuing a red woodpecker in
the depths of the forest. The wound healed in about three weeks, and I
again joyfully sallied forth.

Let us now turn attention to the sloth, whose haunts have hitherto been
so little known. He is a scarce and solitary animal, living in trees,
and being good food, 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 innumerable thorny shrubs
and bushes obstruct the steps of civilized man. We are now in the
sloth's own domain.

Some years ago I kept a sloth in my room for several months. I often
took him out of the house and placed him on the ground. If the ground
were rough, he would pull himself forward, by means of his forelegs, at
a pretty good pace. He invariably shaped his course at once towards the
nearest tree. But if I put him on a smooth and well-trodden part of the
road, he appeared to be in trouble and distress. His favourite abode was
the back of a chair, and after getting all his legs in a line on the
topmost part of it, he would hang there for hours together, and often
with a low and inward cry, would seem to invite me to take notice of
him.

We will now take a view of the vampire. As there was a free entrance and
exit to the vampire, in the loft where I slept, I had many fine
opportunities of paying attention to this nocturnal surgeon. He does not
always live on blood. When the moon shone brightly, and the bananas were
ripe, I could see him approach and eat them. The vampire measures about
26 inches from wing to wing extended. He frequents old abandoned houses
and hollow trees, and sometimes a cluster of them may be seen in the
forest hanging head downward from the branc