s met, stirred by the breeze; and having hitherto seen them
hanging lazily by their claws to boughs, I was surprised at the rapidity
of their movements. I have often heard people assert that the sloth
spends his torpid existence in a perpetual state of pain, from the
peculiar sighing noise he makes, and the slowness of his movements when
placed on the ground. In the first place, I cannot believe that God has
created any animal to pass an existence of pain. The fact is, that the
sloth is formed to live in trees, to climb, and to feed on leaves, and
not to walk on the ground. Though he cannot be called a frisky animal,
he certainly does not deserve the name given to him, as, when he
chooses, he can move, as I now had proof, at a great rate. Dogs bark,
donkeys bray, and cocks crow, and the sloth sighs, when he wishes to
speak; while, from his long arms and short legs, with his sharp claws,
he by nature is intended either to be climbing, or, if asleep, hanging,
with his back perpendicular to the ground. I shot one of my friends,
and hanging him over my shoulder, carried him towards the camp.
Scarcely had I resumed my walk, when I saw a large grasshopper, as I
thought, playing about a bush, and on the point of settling. As I was
passing near it, I was about to put out my hand to catch it, to examine
it more minutely, when, just in time, I sprang back; for there I beheld,
to my horror, the head and crest of an enormous rattlesnake. In another
instant I should have been his victim. I did not stop to see what way
he went, but hurried on as fast as my legs would carry me. I listened,
as I advanced, to the notes of the various birds which filled the
forest, and sometimes to the cries of beasts; and I fancied that I heard
others answering them from a distance.

By some means or other I missed the path I intended to follow, and found
myself in a thick mass of trees. In trying to get out of it, I entirely
lost the line I was pursuing; and at length finding a tree I could
climb, I mounted to the top of it, to look out for my land-mark. While
I sat on a bough, concealed by the thick foliage, I found that I had a
view of an open space at some little distance off, a mass of low trees
only intervening. I was about to descend, when my eye caught sight of a
figure moving through the glade. Presently another, and then another,
followed. The stopped and listened attentively, as if they had heard
something to interest them. The