tal degradation I may (being but human) be suffering from, it
is not the popular form. I am not gullible.

I have been at some pains to bring out distinctly this statement about
myself in view of the story which follows. I have checked the facts as
far as possible. I have turned up the files of French newspapers, and I
have also talked with the officer who commands the military guard on
the Ile Royale, when in the course of my travels I reached Cayenne. I
believe the story to be in the main true. It is the sort of story that
no man, I think, would ever invent about himself, for it is neither
grandiose nor flattering, nor yet funny enough to gratify a perverted
vanity.

It concerns the engineer of the steam-launch belonging to the Maranon
cattle estate of the B. O. S. Co., Ltd. This estate is also an
island--an island as big as a small province, lying in the estuary of a
great South American river. It is wild and not beautiful, but the grass
growing on its low plains seems to possess exceptionally nourishing
and flavouring qualities. It resounds with the lowing of innumerable
herds--a deep and distressing sound under the open sky, rising like
a monstrous protest of prisoners condemned to death. On the mainland,
across twenty miles of discoloured muddy water, there stands a city
whose name, let us say, is Horta.

But the most interesting characteristic of this island (which seems like
a sort of penal settlement for condemned cattle) consists in its being
the only known habitat of an extremely rare and gorgeous butterfly.
The species is even more rare than it is beautiful, which is not saying
little. I have already alluded to my travels. I travelled at that time,
but strictly for myself and with a moderation unknown in our days of
round-the-world tickets. I even travelled with a purpose. As a matter of
fact, I am--"Ha, ha, ha!--a desperate butterfly-slayer. Ha, ha, ha!"

This was the tone in which Mr. Harry Gee, the manager of the cattle
station, alluded to my pursuits. He seemed to consider me the greatest
absurdity in the world. On the other hand, the B. O. S. Co., Ltd.,
represented to him the acme of the nineteenth century's achievement. I
believe that he slept in his leggings and spurs. His days he spent in
the saddle flying over the plains, followed by a train of half-wild
horsemen, who called him Don Enrique, and who had no definite idea of
the B. O. S. Co., Ltd., which paid their wages. He was an excellent
manag