cheerful reading for the enthusiast. He will be apt to cry, "Would that the difficulties and peril
y 19th
r S
mer, and $1:50 the latter per day, and then you often cannot get them. Boat-hire used to be $8 to $10 for a big boat for three to four months; to-day $5, $6, and $7 per day, and all through the rapid development of the gold industry. As you can calculate twenty-five days' river travel to get within reach of the Savannah lands, you can reckon what the expenses must be, and then again about five to seven days coming down the river, and a couple of days to lay over. Then you must count two trips like this, one to bring you up, and one to bring you down three months after, when you return with your collection. Besides this, you run the risk of losing your boat in the rapids either way, which happens not very unfrequently either going or coming; and we have not only to record the loss of several boats with goods, etc., every month, but generally to record the loss of life; only two cases happening last month, in one case seven
but not alone that, I also found him abandoned by most of our Indians, who had fled on account of the Kanaima having killed three of their number. So Mr. Osmers-who got soon better-and I, made up our baskets with plants, and made everything ready. Our Indians returning partly, I sent him ahead with as many load
t Roraima we did not hunt at all, as the district is utterly rubbed out by the Indians. We were about fourteen days at Roraima and got plenty of Utricularia Campbelliana, U. Humboldtii, and U. montana. Also Zygopetalum, Cyp. Lindleyanum, Oncidium nigratum (only fifty-very rare now), Cypripedium Schomburgkianum, Zygopetalum Burkeii, and in fact, all that is to be found on and about Roraima, except the Cattleya Lawrenceana. Also plenty others, as Sobralia, Liliastrum, etc. So our collection was not a very great one; we had the hardest trouble now through the want of Indians to carry the loads. Besides this, the rainy weather set in and our loads suffered badly for all the care we took of them. Besides, the Indians got disagreeable, having to go back several times to bring the remaining
or town. Halfway, at Kapuri falls (one of the most dangerous), we swamped down over a rock, and so we lost some of our things; still saved all our plants, though they lay for a few hours under water with the boat. After this we reached town in safety. So after coming home we found, on packing up, that we had only about
asure, as you of course know, but what I want to point out to yo
rs. Even if Mr. Kromer had succeeded to get 3000 or 4000 fine Cattleya Lawrenceana, it would have been of no value to us, as we could not have got anybody to carry them to the river where a boat could reach. Besides this, I also must tell you that there is a license to be paid out here if you want to collect orchids, amounting to $100, which Mr. Kromer had to pay, an
ss, in the gold-diggings, and shall go up to the Savannah in a few months. I can give you first-class references if you should be willing to send an expedition, and we could come to some arrangement
me a list of what you require, and I will tell you whether the plants are found along the route of travel and in the Savannah visited
of and prettiest South American orchids, which I want for my own collection, as Catt.
ossible, and send you a list by last m
night, but got only two specimens, one of which got lost, and the other one I left in the hands of Mr. Rodway, but so we tried our best.
your ki
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yl
ollectors, or require any information, I