OLD-TIME SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-BOOKS - online book

An Illustrated history & description Of Schools in the 18th & 19th Centurys.

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	354 Old-time Schools and School-books terrify and almost to deafen any one who happens to be near the place. Among the animals peculiar to South America, the most extraordinary is the Sloth, or as it was called by the way of derision, the swift Petre. It is about the size of an ordinary monkey, but of a most wretched appear­ance. It never stirs unless impelled by hunger; it is said to be several minutes in moving one of its legs. Every effort is attended with a most dismal cry. When this animal finds no wild fruits on the ground, he looks out with a great deal of pain for a tree well loaded, which he ascends moving and crying, and stopping by turns. At length, having mounted, he plucks off all the fruit and throws it on the ground, to save himself such another troublesome journey; and rather than be fatigued in com­ing down the tree, gathers himself in a bunch, and with a shriek drops to the ground.
	Bridges in Chili. From Woodridge's Rudiments of Geography, 1829.
	A similar description of the sloth in Dwight's Geography includes the statement that " It is so many days travelling from one tree to another, that it frequently grows lean during the journey."