"I am pledged to return to Batavia within a specified time, and from the nature of the country I perceive it will take all the time at my disposal to reach that place so as to redeem my pledge." "Ha! Zat is a peety.

Vell, nevair mind.

Let us enchoy to-day.

Com', ve must not vaste more of it in zee mere gratification of our animal natures." Acting on this broad hint they all rose and scattered in different groups--the professor going off ahead of his party in his eager haste, armed only with a butterfly net.
Now, as the party of natives,--including Baso, who carried the professor's biggest box, and Grogo, who bore his gun,--did not overtake their leader, they concluded that he must have joined one of the other parties, and, as it was impossible to ascertain which of them, they calmly went hunting on their own account! Thus it came to pass that the man of science was soon lost in the depths of that primeval forest! But little cared the enthusiast for that--or, rather, little did he realise it.

With perspiration streaming from every pore--except where the pores were stopped by mud--he dashed after "bootterflies" with the wisdom of Solomon and the eagerness of a school-boy, and not until the shades of evening began to descend did his true position flash upon him.