Had
he looked in my face as he said this he would have seen no marks of
credulity there.
I now returned to the Custom House, and after expressing my opinion of the
officer's conduct at the depot, I pulled a bunch of keys (which belonged to
the detained boxes) out of my pocket, laid them on the table, took my leave
of the gentlemen present, and soon after set off for Yorkshire.
I saved nothing from the grasp of the stranger officer but a pair of live
Malay fowls, which a gentleman in Georgetown had made me a present of. I
had collected in the forest several eggs of curious birds in hopes of
introducing the breed into England, and had taken great pains in doing them
over with gum arabic, and in packing them in charcoal, according to a
receipt I had seen in the gazette from the _Edinburgh Philosophical
Journal_. But these were detained in the depot, instead of being placed
under a hen; which utterly ruined all my hopes of rearing a new species of
birds in England. Titled personages in London interested themselves in
behalf of the collection, but all in vain.
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