48 A NATUBALIST IN CELEBES ch. in 



rather cooled, I am afraid, my enthusiasm for adding to my 

 collections. I had hoped before leaving Celebes to have 

 another opportunity of visiting the Euang and making some 

 collections more at my leisure, but the opportunity never came, 

 and my investigations were consequently never concluded. 

 Such feelings as these, however, are common to the travel- 

 ling naturalist. He always feels, I imagine, dissatisfied with 

 what he has done upon any particular coast or island, and 

 always hopes that fate will bring him there again to com- 

 plete his work. He forgets in his contemplations the 

 difficulties and hardships he laboured under and the thou- 

 sand trifling details which absorbed his time and attention, 

 and perhaps he does scant justice in blaming himself for 

 things he has left undone. 



It takes a great deal of time and energy to collect plants 

 and birds, butterflies and shells, flies and spiders in a new 

 and difficult country, and one who makes but a rapid march 

 through it cannot expect to obtain many specimens. The 

 feelings of the naturalist upon leaving such a country 

 must be something like those of the visitors to King 

 Solomon's mines, who left with only one pocketful of dia- 

 monds. 



August 22. — After cruising about all day taking sound- 

 ings we arrived at about five o'clock off the island Biarro. 

 We found a very good anchorage on the northern side in 

 about twelve fathoms. 



The time was now fast approaching when the ' Flying 

 Fish ' was to leave these waters for the South, and, in the 

 interval. Captain Maclear very kindly gave me several 

 opportunities of dredging in the Tahsse Sea from one of 

 the steam-cutters. I propose in a later chapter to give a 

 slight sketch of the results I obtained from these investiga- 

 tions, but I have still to describe before concluding this 

 chapter one other little expedition we made to Tanjong Aros, 



