244 TWO YEARS I^ THE JUNGLE. 



of his hard cash behind him, and he takes none of the countrj^'s 

 wealth away. 



When a collecting naturalist makes a tour through the Indies, 

 either East or West, and visits a number of colonies, it is very dis- 

 couraging to have to pay from ten to twenty dollars duty on his 

 guns and outfit every two or three months. There is no sense or 

 justice in making such an individual pay duty on articles he is go- 

 ing to use in a place for a few weeks or months and then carry 

 away vnth him again. A traveller does not visit a colony for the 

 purpose of holding an auction sale of second-hand goods, neither 

 does he give away all his effects. 



In this case there should be special legislation for the benefit 

 of the traveller and naturalist. "But," said an editor to me in 

 Demerara, "we can't legislate for the odd man." A government 

 with common sense can legislate for the odd man, and some do it. 

 Venezuela can do it and has done it. With all her failings, she is 

 able to teach her enlightened colonial neighbors a lesson which as 

 yet they are too dull to learn. There is a special act which provides 

 that all naturalists visiting Venezuela shall be allowed to import 

 their entire outfit and supplies free of duty, and when we arrived 

 at Ciudad- Bolivar, where everything is subject to duty, spirits and 

 firearms in particular, our boxes and barrels were not even opened. 

 We imported a barrel of salt, which under any other circumstances 

 would have been declared contraband and confiscated, and a barrel 

 of spirits which could easily have been used for drinking pvu^poses. 

 The authorities showed us every courtesy during our stay, and we 

 were careful not to abuse our privileges. 



Now, mark the contrast ! From the Orinoco we returned to 

 Trinidad, Avhere three months previous we had purchased our cask 

 of inim. We returned with it full of fishes, turtles, eels and snakes — • 

 and the astute custom-house inspector would not allow us to take it to 

 the hotel unless we paid duty on the spirits around the dead animals! 



We were obHged to repack the cask, so we did it in the Custom 

 House. Alcoholic specimens are vile-smelling objects at best, and, 

 before we got through we had our revenge. At Demerara, we 

 could not take our guns into the colony for a month's collecting 

 without paying $8 duty on them. By a strange coincidence, Sir 

 James Longden, who, as Governor of Ceylon, exacted the outrage- 

 ous duty on my methylated spirits, was Governor of British Guiana 

 in 1876, at the time of ray visit, when they found it " impossible to 

 legislate for the odd man." 



