88 INVINCIBLE COURAGE.

collecting together immense treasures of natural
objects—arranging, preserving, describing, and
classifying them. Consulting rather his zeal in
the cause than his safety or strength, he subjected
himself to the severest trials, now walking over
the burning sands of the African deserts, exposed
to the scorching heat, or traversing rivers and tor-
rents upon the back of a negro, who was occasion-
ally up to his chin in water, or in defending
himself against tigers, wild boars, crocodiles, ser-
pents, and other savage animals, besides the many
noxious insects with which those deserts abound.
“Thad,” he says, “an amazing good state of health,
and this bore me up in the midst of so many perils
and toils, under which a great many would have
sunk. Neither the dangers I was exposed to from
wild beasts, nor the toils of coursing in the woods,
which are rendered inaccessible by thorns, nor the
sultry heats of the east wind that, obliged me every
instant to have recourse to the river waters in
order to quench my violent thirst—none of all
these inconveniences deterred me—nothing was
capable of cooling my courage.”

Some idea of the trials attendant upon his ex-
ploratory rambles may be formed when we learn
that his shoes grew tough like horn, scorched by
the burning sands ; then cracked, and at length fell
away to powder. ‘The very reflection of the heat