Influenced by his example, I early felt the
desire of visiting foreign countries. My mother too (who, though fond
and indulgent, like all the mothers of our race, was as vain and foolish
as any that I have since met with in human society) worked powerfully
on my ambition, by her constant endeavours to "push me up the tree,"
as she called it, in her way. I was already a first-rate orator, and a
member of the great congress of macaws; while in our social re-unions
I left all the young birds of fashion far behind me: and as I not only
articulated some human sounds picked up from the Indians, but could
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.
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