speak a few words of Portuguese and Dutch, learned by rote from my great
grandfather, I was considered a genius of high order. With the conceit,
therefore, of all my noble family, I was prompted to go forth and visit
other and better worlds, and to seek a sphere better adapted to the
display of my presumed abilities, than that afforded by our domestic
senate and home-spun society. On one of those celestial nights, known
only in the tropical regions, I set forth on my travels, directing my
course to the Portuguese settlement, which the youthful vigour of my
wing enabled me to reach by the break of morning. Having refreshed
myself with a breakfast of fruit, after the exhaustion of my nocturnal
flight, I ascended a spacious palm tree, which afforded an admirable
view of the adjacent country, and a desirable shelter from the ardours
of the rising sun. My first impulse was to take a bird's-eye view of the
novel scene which lay before me, and I gazed around for some minutes
with intense delight; but fatigue gradually obtained the mastery over
curiosity, and, putting my head unconsciously beneath my wing, I fell
into a profound sleep. How long this continued, I know not; but I was
suddenly awakened by a strange muttering of unknown voices. I looked,
and beheld two creatures whose appearance greatly surprised me. They had
nothing of the noble form and aspect of our Indian neighbours. One of
them considerably resembled the preacher-monkey in countenance and
deportment; his head was denuded of hair, and his person was covered by
a black substance, which left no limb visible except his ancles and
feet, which were very much like those of an ape. The other had all the
air of a gigantic parrot: he had a hooked bill, a sharp look, a yellow
head; and all the rest of his strange figure was party-coloured, blue,
green, red, and black. I classed him at once as a specimen of the
Psittacus Ochropterus. The ape and the parrot seemed to have taken
shelter beneath the palm tree, like myself, for the purposes of shade
and repose. They had beside them a basket filled with dead game, fruit,