88. My day, until about 4 P.M. was spent getting out accounts straightened out. After that I took a walk down to one of the branches of the Claudie, not collecting particularly, but mainly for exercise. Then I returned to camp. A shower, a shave (a semi-weekly operation these days), the disburse- ment of about L260-0-0 and a cut of our fine beef for dinner put me in a very civilized mood. It seemed rather a shame to go jack-lighting in the evening, get soaking wet and bring in no specimens, but that happened and removed the fine veneer that I had put on. I have now started the wheels turning toward our return home, in that I have instructed B-P to do something about it, and have given them several al- ternatives if they are unable to get us on some ship of the Pioneer Line, whose agents they are. I was informed by the Fisher family at P.R. that five U.S. ships have refused to put in at Brisbane on account of the recent strike, which is why I suggested the alternatives, though anything which emanates from the Fisher menage can be labelled as unreliable. Now it is time to turn in and since I slept poorly last night, I g feel that I can do full justice to my cot tonight. Friday, 11 June 1948. Rarely do I have any difficulty in writing the daily entries here, but it must be rather boring at times to whoever may read it as it simply is a repetition, day by day, of almost the same sort of events. Its main purpose anyway is to keep me in the habit of using some kind of more or less respectable English, and in that respect it is helpful to me, I suppose, but probably nobody else cares what sort of English I use. My thought that I would sleep well last night was confirmed - I think I was in a coma - and I woke refreshed and feeling particularly well. The morn- ing was nothing much save that it brought the first death adder, a stumpy small snake against which boots form a complete protection. Its venom is powerful but its fangs are very short; its worst work is done on the many people who travel in this country in bare feet. In the afternoon George, Van and I went out to one of the tunnels of Jack Gordon's abandoned mine; George and Van wanted some of the thousands of bats which inhabit it and had tole me of immense spiders. The tunnel was several hundred feet long but the virgin rock I had been told about is so soft that one could cut it with a knife. The bats were there but some spider-eating animal had been in recently and eaten up all my prey except one. He was a thing with a span of about six inches, colored black and brown; now he reposes comfortably in pickle. After supper, which is on now, I shall have to set a light trap for in- sects in the scrub; it is a funnel-like thing of canvas, white, and screwed into its thin end there fits a cyanide bottle. The contraction is suspended from a lantern, insects come to the light, fall into the fullel and slide down into the cyanide. It is a gruesome idea but I am going to have supper now; if the gruesome things of a trip influenced one's eating we would soon starve. Barrie, Doug Fisher's step-son, had a remarkably unpleasant experience this evening when he went with George and Van to collect some more bats from the mine adit. To aid in the picture, I had better describe the mine a bit more. As I have said, two of the entrances have caved in and one can enter only by the third. That is a tunnel about seven feet high and five in width, utterly dark, of course, and one hears the swishing of the bats' wings almost immediately, so numerous are they.