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.
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