Most of the men who had taken payment from me had brought the birds they had agreed for.

One poor fellow had been so unfortunate as not to get one, and he very honestly brought back the axe he had received in advance; another, who had agreed for six, brought me the fifth two days before I was to start, and went off immediately to the forest again to get the other.

He did not return, however, and we loaded our boat, and were just on the point of starting, when he came running down after us holding up a bird, which he handed to me, saying with great satisfaction, "Now I owe you nothing." These were remarkable and quite unexpected instances of honesty among savages, where it would have been very easy for them to have been dishonest without fear of detection or punishment.
The country round about Bessir was very hilly and rugged, bristling with jagged and honey-combed coralline rocks, and with curious little chasms and ravines.

The paths often passed through these rocky clefts, which in the depths of the forest were gloomy and dark in the extreme, and often full of fine-leaved herbaceous plants and curious blue-foliaged Lycopodiaceae.

It was in such places as these that I obtained many of my most beautiful small butterflies, such as Sospita statira and Taxila pulchra, the gorgeous blue Amblypodia hercules, and many others.