I found a few good butterflies, but beetles were very scarce, and even rotten timber and newly-felled trees (generally so productive) here produced scarcely anything.

This convinced me that there was not a sufficient extent of forest in the neighbourhood to make the place worth staying at long, but it was too late now to think of going further, as in about a month the wet season would begin; so I resolved to stay here and get what was to be had.

Unfortunately, after a few days I became ill with a low fever which produced excessive lassitude and disinclination to all exertion.

In vain I endeavoured to shake it off; all I could do was to stroll quietly each day for an hour about the gardens near, and to the well, where some good insects were occasionally to be found; and the rest of the day to wait quietly at home, and receive what beetles and shells my little corps of collectors brought me daily.

I imputed my illness chiefly to the water, which was procured from shallow wells, around which there was almost always a stagnant puddle in which the buffaloes wallowed.