45 



Ocaiia, July 1845. 

 Since writing to you last, from Santa Martha, I have travelled 

 hither, over a scorched, and, but for the palms which it presents, 

 most uninteresting plain, between five and six hundred miles in 

 length. Such a trying journey I never had. Two or three slight 

 attacks of fever excepted, I have however been pretty well. At 

 the village of Semafia, seventeen leagues from hence and near the 

 great River Magdalena, I entered the mountains by the Paroquia 

 del Carmen, and there saw the " Tagua" for the first time. 

 Rising gradually between two ranges of mountains, of no great 

 elevation, I reached Ocaiia, situated in an undulated amphitheatre 

 of grassy hills, those in the distance are seen to be covered with 

 primitive forests. Some of these hills are 1500 feet higher than 

 the city, which is itself built at an elevation of 2500 feet, and 

 contains about 6000 inhabitants. The temperature is most de- 

 lightful, and I noticed here, for the first time in this part of the 

 world, small gardens attached to the irregularly placed dwellings. 

 Apples are cultivated with tolerable success, and on the sur- 

 rounding lulls a sufficiency of wheat is grown to supply the town 

 with bread, of somewhat inferior quality. The weather was bad 

 when I first arrived, and prevented my herborizing for a while. 

 I have found it necessary to purchase mules for my journey to 

 Bogota. The hire of each such animal is forty-five dollars, to 

 go direct, and the purchase money is fifty dollars for a cargo 

 mule, and from a 100 to 150 for a saddle-mule, but as I was 

 already provided with the latter, I saved that expense ; and 

 though the people are very difficult to deal with, I accomplished 

 the purchase of the necessary number, at about 200 dollars. 



I spent about fifteen days on the mountains roimd Ocaiia, and 

 from the peculiarly marshy nature of the soil I found a species of 

 Befaria, growing over at this elevation ; I have sent plants of it 

 in the glass case. Two gigantic forest-trees belonging to the 

 genus Cinchona {Quina rosa and Quina clava) abound in the virgin 

 woods, and are showy and highly fragrant ; but two kinds of 

 SipJwcamp'f/hs are the most striking things I have found, one par- 

 ticularly fine. You will find growing specimens of them in the 

 box ; also small individuals of a remarkable Baianop/iora*, often 



* This is, indeed, a very remarkable Balanophorous plant, and different as 

 the appearance of these fine and perfect specimens are from the Ombrophjtum 

 Peruvianum, Poepp. in Nov. Gen. et Sp. Plant. Peruv., &c, vol. ii. t. 155, I 

 have yet satisfied mvself that the two plants are the same or very closely allied 

 species ; differing, if "the description alone be attentively considered (irrespective 

 of the figure), only in our plant being dioecious ; wliile Poeppig's is momccious. 



