276 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
hut. Supplies such as potatoes were also scattered over the floor. 
The periscope seemed to be forgotten in the desire to find some 
incriminating evidence in my notebooks. Even my French dic- 
tionary was examined page by page and held up to the light, 
presumably to discover any invisible writing. 
This comic opera lasted about two hours, after which the Com- 
missioner reluctantly decided to leave, without any grounds for 
arresting what he was convinced was English spy No. 1! 
After his departure it dawned on me that the folding apparatus 
in canvas, which he had sketched on paper and alleged to be a 
periscope, was none other than my lightweight, metal-rodded 
camp bed, but as it was now assembled for sleeping, it did not 
occur to me at the time that this could have been the cause of all 
the trouble. I had thought it wise not to ask to what purpose he 
thought I might put a periscope in the bush, forty-two kilometers 
from the sea. 
Many of the town-dwelling natives began to be afraid to have 
any dealings with me, and the climax came when the driver of a 
lorry refused to take me back to Tulear for fear of getting into 
trouble with the police. Managing to borrow an old bicycle from 
a native, I was compelled to make the twenty-six-mile journey by 
night, without lights or brakes. 
Much of the bush in the coastal region north and south of 
Tulear I would have liked to explore, but the journey overland on 
foot through uninhabited waterless jungle was too difficult, and 
the more comfortable way of going by native coastal schooner 
would have caused too much suspicion at that period, so I gave up 
the idea and returned to the capital. 
Shortly afterwards a new decree was issued forbidding for- 
eigners to travel from one district to another without special per- 
mission, which put an end to my collecting. 
The English missionaries were extremely kind and it was solely 
through their hospitality that I was able to live in the capital, but 
I soon became tired of doing nothing useful, and I longed to get 
to the Androy country in the extreme dry south. 
With doubts in my mind, I wrote to the Governor-General ask- 
ing permission to travel to the town of Ambovombe, a distance 
