Vic Himself Was Next Laid Up
With It, And Seemed To Think He Was Going To Die.
When I was at work
in the evening he would shiver and groan under a blanket by my side;
this, coming night after night, was rather depressing for me, all
alone as I was.
At other times he would imagine we were hunting the
wary and elusive PITTA, and would start up crying, "AH! EL TINKALU,
it is there! POR DEOS, shoot, my English, shoot!" or he would imagine
we were after butterflies, and would cry out, "CARAMBA, MARIPOSA AZUL
MUY GRANDE, MUY BUENO, BUENO!" I was forced to do all the cooking for
both of us, though it was quite pathetic to see poor Vic's efforts to
come to my assistance, and his indignation that his "English" should
do such work for him. At one time I half expected that he would die,
but with careful nursing and doctoring I gradually brought him round.
During all the time that he was ill. I did but little collecting,
and no sooner was Vic on the road to recovery than I myself was seized
with it, and Vic repaid the compliment by nursing me in turn. It was
a most depressing illness, especially as I was living on the poorest
fare in a close and dirty hut. When you are ill in civilization, with
nurses and doctors and a good bed, you feel that you are in good hands,
and confidence does much to help recovery. But it is a different matter
being sick in the wilds, without any of these luxuries, and you wonder
what will happen if it gets serious. Then you long for home and its
luxuries, with a very great longing, and cordially detest the spot
you are in, with all those wretched birds and butterflies! It is Eke
a long nightmare, but as you get better you forget all this, and the
jaundiced feeling soon wears off, and you start off collecting again
as keen as ever. One day a small skinny brown dog somehow managed to
climb up the bamboo step into my hut during Vic's temporary absence,
and I suddenly awoke to find it helping itself to the contents of a
plate that Vic had placed by my side. I was far too ill to do more
than frighten it away. This happened a second time before I was strong
enough to move, but the third time I was well enough to seize my small
collecting gun (which was loaded with very small cartridges), and
when it was about thirty yards away I fired at it, simply intending to
frighten it, as at that distance these small cartridges would hardly
have killed a small bird. It stopped suddenly and, after spinning
round a few times yelping, it turned over on its back. Even then I
thought it was shamming, but on going up to it I found it was dead,
with only one No. 8 shot in its spleen.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 42 of 114
Words from 21573 to 22074
of 59060
