294 NOTES WRITTEN ON A VOYAGE 
to botanize much, I have still seen much of the vegetation, and 
have got together more than 500 species. The way I manage is to 
have the tin vasculum always on a man’s back behind me, so that 
if I see anything I can put it in, and I am obliged to get Mrs. Moi- 
ley to dry them, for I am out all day, and sometimes several days 
together. The survey will however soon be over, I hope, and then 
I shall not be quite so nomadic. Besides the 500 species, I have 
above some 100 or so more Orchids, which I keep in the garden, and 
dry a specimen when they flower, always putting a flower or two in 
spirits, with a corresponding number; but I do not succeed well with 
the Orchidee ; and now that it is the dry season, I lose many of my 
plants for want of a proper place to put them. I am living at present 
in a Government building here, for until our boundaries are put all 
right, I do not know where we shall work coal, and there of course I 
must live, so it will yet be some time before Iam settled ; when I know 
my location, I shall certainly make a garden of Ferns and Orchidee. I 
am looking forward with great anxiefy to the time when I shall be able 
to get further inland. We have close by a tolerably extensive range of 
hills 2000 to 3000 feet high, and some further off, which ] believe 
must reach 6000; this is high enough to give me quite a new flora. I 
got one Rhododendron at Brune at 760 feet, but only just on the 
summit: the specimens of this you must now have. The highest ele- 
vation I have yet been on here is an isolated serpentine hill about 1000 
... feet ; it was very bare and dry, but I found seven Orchidee I had not seen 
. before, and a new Casuarina, of which however I saw no flowers OT 
fruit. I shall have to return to this hill hereafter to seck mineral veins; 
. and I believe the valleys about it, which I must then explore, will yield 
me beautiful Ferns. We have many Loranthacee here. I know cer- 
tainly six Lorauthi and two Visca, not including four Loranthi and 
one Viscum which I found at Labuan. I am now trying an experiment 
with them which, if it succeeds, will be very interesting. [am grafting 
and budding them with every variety of joint on different plants, of 
which I believe Melia Azedarach and Citrus Decumana are the most 
likely we succeed ; so far they look well. If I could send you a Ward's 
— with living Loranthi, i& would be a fine prize for you, and really 1 
have great hopes. Ishall try them also by seed, but this is difficult 
o find, as the birds eat it all before it is ripe. We have certainly à 
affesia here, but I have not yet seen it; it must be very rare, for I 
