ur which a carcase should, and about twenty of the
common vultures came and perched on the neighbouring trees. The king of
the vultures came too; and I observed that none of the common ones
inclined to begin breakfast till his majesty had finished. When he had
consumed as much snake as nature informed him would do him good, he
retired to the top of a high mora-tree, and then all the common vultures
fell to and made a hearty meal.

When canoeing down the noble river Essequibo I had an adventure with a
cayman, which we caught with a shark hook baited with the flesh of the
acouri. The cayman was ten and a half feet long. He had swallowed the
bait in the night and was thus fast to the end of a rope. My people
pulled him up from the depths and out he came--"_monstrum horrendum,
informe_." I saw that he was in a state of fear and perturbation. I
jumped on his back, immediately seized his forelegs, and by main force
twisted them on his back; thus they served for a bridle.

The cayman now seemed to have recovered from his surprise and plunged
furiously, and lashed the sand with his long tail. I was out of reach of
the strokes of it, by being near his head. He continued to plunge and
strike, and made my seat very uncomfortable. It must have been a fine
sight for an unoccupied spectator. The people roared in triumph and
pulled us above forty yards on the sand. It was the first time I was
ever on a cayman's back. Should it be asked how I managed to keep my
seat, I would answer that I hunted for some years with Lord Darlington's
foxhounds.

After some further struggling the cayman gave in. I now managed to tie
up his jaws. He was finally conveyed to the canoe and then to the place
where we had suspended our hammocks. There I cut his throat and after
breakfast commenced the dissection.

ARTHUR YOUNG

Travels in France

_I.--The First Journey, 1787_

Arthur Young was born September 11, 1741, at Whitehall;
died April 20, 1820. Most of his life was spent on his
patrimonial estate at Bradfield Hall, near Bury St.
Edmunds, England. He was the son of the Rev. Dr. Arthur
Young, rector of Bradfield, Prebendary of Canterbury
Cathedral, and Chaplain to Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the
House of Commons. On his father's death he took to
farming, but at the same time addicted himself to
literature, becoming a parliamentary reporter. Arthur
Young was indeed much more successful in literary pursuits
than in th