Wanderings in South America , page 179 by Charles Waterton
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tes of America may be found grace and beauty and symmetry equal to anything in the Old World.
I now for good and all (and well I might) gave up the idea of finding bugs, bears, brutes and buffaloes in this country, and was thoroughly satisfied that I had laboured under a great mistake in suspecting that I should ever meet with them.
I wished to join in the dance where the fair Albanese was "to brisk notes in cadence beating," but the state of my unlucky foot rendered it impossible; and as I sat with it reclined upon a sofa, full many a passing gentleman stopped to inquire the cause of my misfortune, presuming at the same time that I had got an attack of gout. Now this surmise of theirs always mortified me; for I never had a fit of gout in my life, and, moreover, never expect to have one.
In many of the inns in the United States there is an album on the table in which travellers insert their arrival and departure, and now and then indulge in a little flash or two of wit.
I thought under existing circumstances that there would be no harm in briefly telling my misadventure; and so taking up the pen I wrote what follows, and was never after asked a single question about the gout.
C. Waterton, of Walton Hall, in the county of York, England, arrived at the Falls of Niagara in July 1824, and begs leave to pen down the following dreadful accident:
He sprained his foot, and hurt his toe, On the rough road near Buffalo. It quite distresses him to stagger a- Long the sharp rocks of famed Niagara. So thus he's doomed to drink the measure Of pain, in lieu of that of pleasure. On Hope's delusive pinions borne He came for wool, and goes back shorn. N.B.--Here he alludes to nothing but Th' adventure of his toe and foot; Save this,--he sees all that which can Delight and charm the soul of man, But feels it not,--because his toe And foot together plague him so.
I remember once to have sprained my ankle very violently many years ago, and that the doctor ordered me to hold it