Dr. Battius, however, watched his movements with a jealousy,
still more striking than the cordial reception which the open-hearted
Paul had just exhibited.
But the doubts, or rather apprehensions, of the naturalist were of a
character altogether different from the confidence of the bee-hunter.
He had been struck with the stranger's using the legitimate, instead
of the perverted name of the animal off which he was making his
repast; and as he had been among the foremost himself to profit by the
removal of the impediments which the policy of Spain had placed in the
way of all explorers of her trans-Atlantic dominions, whether bent on
the purposes of commerce, or, like himself, on the more laudable
pursuits of science, he had a sufficiency of every-day philosophy to
feel that the same motives, which had so powerfully urged himself to
his present undertaking, might produce a like result on the mind of
some other student of nature. Here, then, was the prospect of an
alarming rivalry, which bade fair to strip him of at least a moiety of
the just rewards of all his labours, privations, and dangers.
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