80 LETTERS FROM JAMES MOTLEY, ESQ. 
white Usnea, like U. florida, 1 believe I have collected about 200 
species of Hepatice, Musci, and Lichens, and the greater part of them 
in fruit. I shall be able, I think, to make twenty to thirty sets when I 
have time to open them; at present I have just dried and packed them 
up in a box, which it will be several months before I am able to attack : 
you shall receive some early specimens when I do get at them. The 
natives here are very capital, intelligent fellows; I had three of them 
with me each day, with baskets, for which I paid one rupee, or about 
sixteen pence, and they seemed quite delighted; they soon found out 
what I wanted, and I owe many of the specimens in fruit to their sharp 
eyes. When I found a species barren, I just showed it them, and told 
them where I expected to find the fruit proceeding from, and they 
rarely failed to find it before long; they seemed, too, to identify them- 
selves so with the matter, and showed such emulation as to who should 
be the first to find something new, that it was quite pleasant to be with 
them,—I might have fancied myself among botanists; these moun- 
taineers, however, are botanists to an extent you would hardly expect 
among so-called savages. Every plant has its native name, and given 
upon the system of generic and specific names : for instance, when I asked 
a man the name of a little Pavetta, he said at once, “I never saw this 
before, and I don’t know its own name, but its ‘mother name’ is so 
and so," mentioning the native generic term for Pavetta Ixora and such 
plants in general. The authors of the catalogue of the Buitenzorg Garden 
have thought these names worth recording, and I think they are right ; 
for I saw many plants I should not have seen, especially among the 
Ericee, but by asking for them by such names given in the catalogue ; 
and it is wonderful, on looking these over, to find how well the system 
is carried out. It is of course imperfect, but remarkable for people with 
. no written language ;—they do not speak Malay or Javanese, but a pe- 
culiar dialect called Sundanese. When I was tired of Ivegoe, or rather 
when I had spent as much time as I could afford there, I went on 
about twenty miles further to Chepanas, where there is a regular 
European garden, to supply vegetables for the Governor’s table. It 
was pleasant enough to see there beet and lettuces, etc., growing very 
. finely. There is a pond also with some Salix Babylonica, but they 
- look miserably, as do the European fruit-trees, though they seem to 
. grow pretty quickly. The Plums appear to have most of the true 
flavour. The Apples certainly attain the most perfect colour; and the 
Men D. SML uc 
adiu al esce 
