Page:The Rambler in Mexico.djvu/37

 Rh and other gaudy rivals. Here and there, a small enclosure of sugarcane, and a picturesque Indian hut, would rise on the ordinary solitude of my stroll. I always found the pure-blooded native friendly; and a yard of sugarcane, a gourd of water, and perhaps a glass of aqua ardiente were always at my service. For a whole week I found these daily predatory walks perfectly delightful. I rushed into every thicket, I culled every flower, I handled everything within reach, and longed to handle a great deal which was beyond it. I went wheresoever I lasted, nothing doubting; and you certainly have no suspicion of the cause which was all this time, silently but surely, operating a total change in my taste, habits, and pursuits.

I have described what I was the first week; I will now tell you what I was the second, and, in fact, as long as I remained in the lower country. My love of locomotion remained the same, but all my eagerness and fire to make collections, and to touch what I saw, were utterly extinguished. I walked abroad it is true, but it was with the noli-me-tangere air of a spruce gentleman in a street full of chimney-sweepers. My eyes roamed as they had hitherto done—but as to contact with flower or leaf, however curious or beautiful it might be, that I most scrupulously avoided. I found it was one thing to catch crickets, or gather lilies, daisies, or daffodils in England, and another to make collections under the tropics.

In fact, here the insects and the flowers are in league for mutual defence; every leaf, every spray holds its myriads of garapatos, a species of wood bug, from the size of a small pin head to that of a pea; and the slightest touch is sure to bring a host upon your person, where, attaining the skin, they silently and insensibly bury themselves to the neck, with their barbed claws, and are seldom perceived till they are too firmly fixed to extract without danger; and at the best, cause great irritation, and often inflammation. Now in consequence of my love of natural history, I had become a perfect pasture for these omniverous nuisances, with others of