TAMPICO. 



31 



rot and other gaudy rivals. Here and there, a small 

 enclosure of sugarcane, and a picturesque Indian hut, 

 would rise on the ordinary solitude of my stroll. I al- 

 ways found the pure-blooded native friendly ; and a yard 

 of sugarcane, a gourd of water, and perhaps a glass of aqua 

 ardiente, were always at my service. For a whole week 

 I found these daily predatory walks perfectly delightful. 

 I rushed into every thicket, I culled every flower, I 

 handled everything within reach, and longed to handle 

 a great deal which was beyond it. I went wheresoever 

 I listed, nothing doubting ; and you certainly have no sus- 

 picion of the cause which was all this time, silently but 

 surely, operating a total change in my taste, habits, and 

 pursuitsr 



I have described what I was the first week ; I will now 

 tell you what I was the second, and, in fact, as long as I 

 remained in the lower country. My love of locomotion 

 remained the same, but all my eagerness and fire to 

 make collections, and to touch what I saw, were utterly 

 extinguished. I walked abroad it is true, but it was with 

 the noli-me-tangere air of a spruce gentleman in a street 

 full of chimney-sweepers. My eyes roamed as they 

 had hitherto done — but as to contact with flower or 

 leaf, however curious or beautiful it might be, that I 

 most scrupulously avoided. I found it was one thing to 

 catch crickets, or gather lilies, daisies, or daffodils in 

 England, and another to make collections under the 

 tropics. 



In fact, here the insects and the flowers are in league 

 for mutual defence ; every leaf, every spray holds its 

 myriads of gampatos, a species of wood bug, from the 

 size of a small pin head to that of a pea ; and the 

 slightest touch is sure to bring a host upon your person, 

 where, attaining the skin, they silently and insensibly 

 bury themselves to the neck, with their barbed claws, 

 and are seldom perceived till they are too firmly fixed to 

 extract without danger ; and at the best, cause great ir- 

 ritation, and often inflammation. Now in consequence 

 of my love of natural history, I had become a perfect 

 pasture for these omniverous nuisances, with others of 



