2 TWO YEARS IN THE JUNGLE, 



October, just two months after the plan was first proposed, I start- 

 ed eastward to India. 



Was it by some institution of learning or scientific society that 

 I was sent out ? No, indeed ; there is not one in this country or 

 any other that ever had the enterprise to set on foot such an un- 

 dertaking and back it up to the bitter end with the necessary hard 

 cash. A private individual then, was it ? It was, and who else than 

 Henry A. Ward would have had the pluck to send a collector on a 

 tour around the world, to furnish him ample funds for expenses 

 during nearly three years' work, and pay him a good salary besides ? 



Yet this lavish expenditure jDroved a good investment, and 

 yielded more museum materije, in a better state of preservation, 

 than could be purchased with three times the amount of money 

 expended on the trip. This novel expedition was rendered neces- 

 sary by the demands of various scientific museums upon Professor 

 Ward's establishment, for East Indian forms which were not to be 

 obtained without sending a collector to gather them in the field. 



Behold me, then, on board the steamship Bolivia, steaming 

 swiftly, but not too swiftly, I confess, across the Atlantic, in com- 

 pany with Professor Ward himself, whose companionship I was to 

 enjoy as far as the Ked Sea. My outfit of fire-arms and ammuni- 

 tion, knives, tools, preservatives, collecting cases, and camp equi- 

 page was both complete and compact, and I considered it very 

 nearly perfect. My instructions were anything but rigid, and I 

 had really a roving commission to visit India, Ceylon, the Malay 

 Peninsula, and Borneo, in quest of mammals in particular, and ver- 

 tebrates of all kinds in general. It was particularly to my hking 

 that quadrupeds of all species, from the elephant downward, were 

 needed most of all, and that my natural preference for the chase 

 and study of mammals in their haunts was to be indulged almost 

 without limit. I was directed especially to secure skins and skel- 

 etons of elephants, Indian bison and elk, orang-utans, gibbons, 

 monkeys of all species, two or three tigers if practicable, and 

 every species of crocodile procurable. The avifauna of that region 

 was then being very thoroughly studied by A, O. Hume, Esq., 

 and his co-laborers, and I could well afford to leave the birds to 

 him and his army of collectors. 



In due time we landed at Londonderry, and to me was assigned 

 the pleasant task of visiting the Giant's Causeway, near Port Rush, 

 to procure several of its basalt columns for Professor Ward's cabi- 

 net. This great geological wonder is the most interesting feature 



