t 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 attaching 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
collection; 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 punishment
too severe for a naturalist to pass over in silence.

I had, how