196 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



of the knee and leg and was laid up for a week. On the 

 first day I was able to walk, I went down to Buna 

 Bay in teeming rain. Next day two lumps started 

 in the knee and inside the lower thigh. It was about 

 a fortnight before they burst, and then only when I 

 had cut them with a razor. They seemed to start 

 somewhere deep inside the leg and the whole limb 

 swelled up until the inflammatory matter found 

 an outlet. I never in my life suffered such excru- 

 ciating agony as I did this time coming down to the 

 coast; and this illness pulled me down to a thinner 

 state than I had been in for thirteen years, since I 

 first went to the South Seas. Fortunately I got to 

 Samarai in safety, but a good deal wearied with the 

 South Sea island life and very clearly resolved on a 

 long holiday in Australia to recruit my shattered 

 health. I found awaiting me letters from the Tring 

 Museum urging upon me an expedition to Rennell 

 Island. It was quite the most unfavourable time 

 to get such a request. I was more inclined to give 

 up collecting altogether than to undertake a trip 

 which would have been the most dangerous I had 

 yet attempted. Accordingly I wrote back to the 

 Museum authorities: 



"I am quite willing to visit Rennell Island but 

 expect to be remunerated for doing so, whether 

 successful in collecting or not. To go to such a place, 

 that has no anchorage, with a big chance of losing 

 one's life either by sea or on land, is rather a steep 



