To avoid this malaria, Captain Hart always slept at his plantation, on a slight elevation about two miles from the town, where Mr.Geach also had a small house, which he kindly invited me to share.

We rode there in the evening; and in the course of two days my baggage was brought up, and I was able to look about me and see if I could do any collecting.
For the first few weeks I was very unwell and could not go far from the house.

The country was covered with low spiny shrubs and acacias, except in a little valley where a stream came down from the hills, where some fine trees and bushes shaded the water and formed a very pleasant place to ramble up.

There were plenty of birds about, and of a tolerable variety of species; but very few of them were gaily coloured.

Indeed, with one or two exceptions, the birds of this tropical island were hardly so ornamental as those of Great Britain.