28 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



all the time I had been in Australia, but on this trip 

 I made for the first time collecting the only object 

 of life. Unfortunately my mate suffered a good 

 deal from rheumatism, and had to abandon the camp 

 once for quite a long spell, leaving me alone there. 

 That was an experience which at first I found a little 

 unpleasant. But it fell to me so often afterwards 

 that I think nothing now of being the only white 

 man in a camp among savages six weeks' march away 

 from the next white neighbour. 



On this, my first collecting trip, I made not many 

 new discoveries. I do not think it was possible to 

 have done so, as from a Natural History point of view 

 that part of Australia had been very well explored, at 

 least as regards birds and butterflies. We collected, 

 however, some interesting specimens, especially of the 

 flying squirrels. Then, in search of something new, 

 we went up the Johnson River, Queensland, making 

 a camp about ten miles from the mouth of the river. 

 Again we collected everything in the way of Natural 

 History specimens mammals, birds, and insects. I 

 think I must except crocodiles, which were very 

 plentiful there, but which we did not trouble to 

 collect. I recollect once, when out shooting ducks 

 in a swamp which kept us up to our waists in water, 

 I came upon a crocodile's nest with fifty-seven eggs 

 in it. This nest was made of swamp grass and the 

 eggs in it were all together higgledy-piggledy. The 

 eggs of the crocodile are hatched out by the heat 



