“I say, I say!” cried Grenits, “might you not skip all these barbarous words. That a Pole like Murowski makes use of them is excusable perhaps—he knows no better; but that he should inflict them upon us!—it is unpardonable.”
“Oh, well!” replied van Rheijn, “I have almost done—
“ ‘—The coleoptera, the crustaceans are really our best and truest friends, and that they would, after all, afford me the most wholesome recreation. I happened to be in luck’s way. Patients there were none, and, to make assurance doubly sure, a medical officer, and therefore a colleague of mine, had arrived here in Gombong. He had obtained three months’ leave, and, in this mild and singularly equable climate, he hoped to find a cure for an incipient liver-complaint. This gentleman was willing, he was indeed quite eager, to take my place in any unforeseen emergency, if it were only to break the monotony of his existence out here. I quickly availed myself of this favourable opportunity to ask our military chief for eight days’ leave to go on a trip into the Karang Bollong mountains and give myself up to my passion for entomology.
“ ‘ “By all means,” said the kind-hearted captain, “by all means, you go and catch butterflies and snoutbeetles. Only see that in those wild mountain districts you don’t come to grief; and, mind you, be back again in time.”
“ ‘An hour after, I had shouldered my gun, slung on my game-bag; and, with the tin box for my collection strapped to my back, I was on the war-path, my servant following with the other necessaries. From Gombong I marched through the dessas Karang djah, Ringodono and Pringtoetoel, and there I was in the heart of the mountain country. That journey I did not make in a single day; but I took my time, and spent two days in covering the ground.
“ ‘I will not tire you with an account of my insect-hunt, that would, in fact, be casting pearls before swine.’ ”
“Upon my word, that is a good one!” exclaimed Grenits, laughing. “Our Pole is exquisitely polite!”
“Well,” laughed van Rheijn, “he is paying you back in your own coin, you remember what you said about ‘barbarous words’ just now. But let me get on.
“ ‘But yet I must tell you that my trip was very successful. I have every reason to be satisfied; for among many other rare and valuable specimens, I secured a fine Ulysses and a splendid Priamos. But what will constitute the real glory of my collection is an Atlas, a truly magnificent creature, which, with outspread wings, covers an area of nearly a foot square. I will not however dwell on these matters. I know you take no interest in them. No, no, I have a subject to write upon which will prove much more attractive to yourself and to your friends. Our experiment in opium-smoking has been haunting me ever since I witnessed it; and I have by no means forgotten the conversation we held on that occasion. What I then heard and saw has opened my eyes and my ears, and has made me very attentive whenever the opium question is mentioned. And, I must say, that I have here been brought to the very spot where I am able to glean most interesting information about the use of that drug. In my wanderings through the Karang Bollong mountains, I have been brought into contact with the gathering of the far-famed birds’ nests. Whether you gentlemen are acquainted with that source of the Dutch revenue, I know not; but in order to come to the subject I wish to lay before you, that is, the abuse of opium and the encouragement the Government gives to that abuse, I must give you a short account of this most interesting gathering of birds’ nests. You must, for the present at least, take my word for the truth of every syllable I write—’ ”
“The deuce we must!” cried Grenits, “he is rather exacting!”