Wakefield Museums and Castles

‘Wanderings in South America’ by Charles Waterton, 1825 

Collected in 1985

Currently on display at Wakefield Museum in the A World of Good gallery.

Charles Waterton made four ‘Wanderings’. Waterton’s first book described his four journeys through North and South America and the Caribbean. His expeditions took place between 1812 and 1824.

‘Wanderings in South America’ was a bestseller in its time. It made Waterton an eccentric celebrity.

Waterton writes about his observations on the wildlife and people he encountered. He also describes catching and riding a caiman out of the Essequibo River in Guyana.

He talks about shooting a strange creature called ‘A Nondescript’. Waterton also writes about ‘wourali’. This was a poison used by the Macushi, an Indigenous people, on the tip of their blowpipe darts.

The frontispiece of the book features an illustration of the nondescript.