324 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
grass verge of the road, only about fifty yards from where it 
escaped. I was wheeling my bicycle at the time and so I went 
along and found the perfectly harmless young boa constrictor, 
picked it up by the tail and returned home, wheeling the bicycle 
with one hand and holding the snake with the other. 
The capture was announced in the press and then Georgetown 
was able to sleep peacefully! 
This incident is an illustration of the gulf that separates towns- 
people from their natural surroundings, and the way fantastic 
stories arise as to the dangerous nature of the creatures that inhabit 
the wilds. Strangely enough, in places like Guiana, which is 
mainly jungle, the gulf is infinitely greater than in more civilized 
countries, probably on account of the fact that it is not advanced 
enough for its people to take an interest in natural history. 
Sport, of course, has an overwhelming appeal to the coloreds, 
especially football, cycling, cricket, and boxing; but some of the 
young people showed an intelligent interest in my collection. They 
are probably lacking in suitable tutors, for it struck me as strange 
that I should be invited to lecture on the mammals of British 
Guiana within a few weeks of my arrival. 
At last I felt justified in having a break of two or three weeks 
as my helper seemed sufficiently well trained to take over for a 
while. 
My idea was to collect some of the birds of the interior, and 
with this object in view I took the small steamer which makes its 
way by sea to the mouth of the Essequibo River and then up- 
stream to Bartica. It was interesting to cover the route that I had 
taken years previously and to compare the changes. The chief of 
these was the number of passengers, which seemed to me about 
four times the previous figure, but there was little evidence of 
expansion on the banks of the great river. It seemed as wild and 
unconquerable as ever. 
Bartica itself had certainly changed; instead of the one street, 
one hundred people and one church, there were now nine streets, 
nine hundred people, and nine places of worship. The town is 
delightfully situated on the spit of land between the confluence 
of the Essequibo and Mazaruni Rivers, and with the increase of 
