Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
there is no part of them much above a hundred feet high; and the whole being a mass of por-
ous coralline rock, allows the surface water rapidly to escape. The only dry season they have
is for a month or two about September or October, and there is then an excessive scarcity of
water, so that sometimes hundreds of birds and other animals die of drought. The natives
then remove to houses near the sources of the small streams, where, in the shady depths of
the forest, a small quantity of water still remains. Even then many of them have to go miles
for their water, which they keep in large bamboos and use very sparingly. They assure me
that they catch and kill game of all kinds, by watching at the water holes or setting snares
around them. That would be the time for me to make my collections; but the want of water
would be a terrible annoyance, and the impossibility of getting away before another whole
year had passed made it out of the question.
Ever since leaving Dobbo I had suffered terribly from insects, who seemed here bent
upon revenging my long-continued persecution of their race. At our first stopping-place
sand-flies were very abundant at night, penetrating to every part of the body, and producing
a more lasting irritation than mosquitoes. My feet and ankles especially suffered, and were
completely covered with little red swollen specks, which tormented me horribly. On arriving
here we were delighted to find the house free from sand-flies or mosquitoes, but in the
plantations where my daily walks led me, the day-biting mosquitoes swarmed, and seemed
especially to delight in attacking my poor feet. After a month's incessant punishment, those
useful members rebelled against such treatment and broke into open insurrection, throwing
out numerous inflamed ulcers, which were very painful, and stopped me from walking. So I
found myself confined to the house, and with no immediate prospect of leaving it. Wounds
or sores in the feet are especially difficult to heal in hot climates, and I therefore dreaded
them more than any other illness. The confinement was very annoying, as the fine hot
weather was excellent for insects, of which I had every promise of obtaining a fine collec-
tion; and it is only by daily and unremitting search that the smaller kinds, and the rarer and
more interesting specimens, can be obtained. When I crawled down to the river-side to
bathe, I often saw the blue-winged Papilio ulysses, or some other equally rare and beautiful
insect; but there was nothing for it but patience, and to return quietly to my bird-skinning, or
whatever other work I had indoors. The stings and bites and ceaseless irritation caused by
these pests of the tropical forests, would be borne uncomplainingly; but to be kept prisoner
by them in so rich and unexplored a country, where rare and beautiful creatures are to be
met with in every forest ramble—a country reached by such a long and tedious voyage, and
which might not in the present century be again visited for the same purpose—is a punish-
ment too severe for a naturalist to pass over in silence.
