CHAPTER VI 
VICISSITUDES AND A DIGRESSION 
As the days went on at Dinawa, there was no sign of 
any breaking up of the great drought, which began 
seriously to affect the success of our work. Butterflies 
grew scarce, and daily the catch fell off, for the vege- 
tation was getting very dry. Lycopodiums were drop- 
ping off the trees, and often we could see, in the lower 
grounds, great forest fires, which consumed the under- 
growth throughout large tracts of country, miles and 
miles being left blackened and burnt up. In these 
conflagrations, millions of low-feeding and high-feed- 
ing larvee must have been destroyed, and there was a 
corresponding decrease in the insect life of the district. 
Seeing that, for a time, there was not much more to 
be done, we decided to quit our camp at Dinawa and 
descend to the St. Joseph River; so, on July 22, we 
set out with thirty carriers, and went down into a deep 
valley, whence we climbed a ridge which brought us 
to a native village so strongly stockaded that we knew 
that the tribes must be at war—village against village 
—and this unsettled state of affairs made it very 
difficult to persuade the natives to pass with us through 
the open country that lay between the hamlets. 
At this place we changed carriers, and, accom- 
panied by the chief of the village, we descended by an 
extremely rough native path to the St. Joseph River, 
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