A NATURALIST'S OCCUPATION 357 



inside and out about once a year by the proprietor, a native 

 trader ; the floor was of earth ; the ventilation was per- 

 fect, for the outside air, and sometimes the rain as well, 

 entered freely through gaps at the top of the walls under 

 the eaves and through wide crevices in the doorways. 

 Rude as the dwelling was, I look back with pleasure on 

 the many happy months I spent in it. I rose generally 

 with the sun, when the grassy streets were wet with dew, 

 and walked down to the river to bathe : five or six hours 

 of every morning were spent in collecting in the forest, 

 whose borders lay only five minutes' walk from my house : 

 the hot hours of the afternoon, between three and six 

 o'clock, and the rainy days, were occupied in preparing 

 and ticketing the specimens, making notes, dissecting 

 and drawing. I frequently had short rambles by water in 

 a small montaria, with an Indian lad to paddle. The 

 neighbourhood yielded me, up to the last day of my resi- 

 dence, an uninterrupted succession of new and curious 

 forms in the different classes of the animal kingdom, but 

 especially insects. 



I lived, as may already have been seen, on the best of 

 terms with the inhabitants of Ega. Refined society, of 

 course, there was none ; but the score or so of decent, 

 quiet families which constituted the upper class of the 

 place were very sociable ; their manners offered a curious 

 mixture of naive rusticity and formal politeness ; the 

 great desire to be thought civilized leads the most ignorant 

 of these people (and they are all very ignorant, although 

 of quick intelligence) to be civil and kind to strangers from 

 Europe. I was never troubled with that impertinent, 

 curiosity on the part of the people in these interior places 

 which some travellers complain of in other countries. 

 The Indians and lower half-castes — at least such of them 

 who gave any thought to the subject — seemed to think 

 it natural that strangers should collect and send abroad 

 the beautiful birds and insects of their country. The 

 butterflies they universally concluded to be wanted as 

 patterns for bright-coloured calico-prints. As to the better 

 sort of people, I had no difliculty in making them under- 

 stand that each European capital had a public museum, 

 in which were sought to be stored specimens of all natural 

 productions in the mineral, animal, and vegetable king- 

 doms. They could not comprehend how a man could 

 study science for its own sake ; but I told them I was 



