478 



A NATUnAlIST'S WANDf':RlXa.S 



CHAPTER V. 



HETUHN TO EUROPE. 



Bad news fixMn Dilly— Start tliither— Camp in the open— Bees — Lflcio river — 

 Bajah's of Laicor — The Q.neen of Laclo — A hot ride — Gijological note— 

 Matu — MetiDaru — Salt marshes— A long night-ridle — K(^tnrn to DSlly 

 Balace— Extract from A.'s journal— Kctum toFatnnaha — Fevers — Decide 

 to return to Europe — StirpriseJ hy the arrtvai of steamer— Ttegretfiil 

 dejmrtuvo from Fatimaki — Revisit Banda and Amboina; — Meiiado — A 

 1 u cky accident — Batavia—KrakAtoa— Home, 



Next morning, just as we liad aet outj we were hailed from a 

 neiglibouring height by a man whom I made out to be in 

 military imiform. On coming up, he informed me that he had 

 been trying to overtake ns for many days, and delivered to me 

 letters from the Government Secretary (Scnhor Bento da 

 Franfa) to say that Mrs. Forbes was very ill, and urging my 

 immediate return to the Palace whither she had been con* 

 Yeycd from Fatuuaba. As the route I was following was the 

 neare«t^ I eonld gain time only by making forced marchea. 

 Descending by an nndulating route to the Yebirah river, we 

 reached the first level ground traversed in our journey — a 

 plateau clothed with gum-trees parallel to and sloping gently 

 with the course of the river, and about one hundred feet above its 

 channel. In being entirely composed of a perfectly horizontal 

 mass of sand and small pebbles, embedding strata of crystalline 

 sandstone which protruded through it at a high augle^ its 

 geological features were identical with what I have described 

 as seen in the Samoro and other rivers I had crossed. 



A little before sunset, after a march of ten hours broken by 

 a halt of only thirty minutes, we camped on a grassy spot on 

 the bank, in little extemporised grass huts. During the brief 

 twilight after the sun had disappeared, the air for some twenty 

 minutes was suddenly filled with the hum^of Ijees {Apis dormfa\ 

 as if a swarm had alighted among the flowers of the Gum- 



