The Town Being Surrounded For Some Distance By Swamps And Mudflats Is
Very Unhealthy, And A Single Night Often Gives A Fever To Newcomers
Which Not Unfrequently Proves Fatal.
To avoid this malaria, Captain
Hart always slept at his plantation, on a slight elevation about two
miles from the town, where Mr. Geach also had a small house, which he
kindly invited me to share.
We rode there in the evening; and in the
course of two days my baggage was brought up, and I was able to look
about me and see if I could do any collecting.
For the first few weeks I was very unwell and could not go far from
the house. The country was covered with low spiny shrubs and acacias,
except in a little valley where a stream came down from the hills,
where some fine trees and bushes shaded the water and formed a very
pleasant place to ramble up. There were plenty of birds about, and of
a tolerable variety of species; but very few of them were gaily
coloured. Indeed, with one or two exceptions, the birds of this
tropical island were hardly so ornamental as those of Great Britain.
Beetles were so scarce that a collector might fairly say there were
none, as the few obscure or uninteresting species would not repay him
for the search. The only insects at all remarkable or interesting were
the butterflies, which, though comparatively few in species, were
sufficiently abundant, and comprised a large proportion of new or rare
sorts.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 261 of 419
Words from 71215 to 71470
of 114260
