OP DR. J. R. T. VOGEL. 613 



with the fresh green which the rainy season has produced, 

 is very lovely. As I sit under the awning on the 

 quarter-deck, and look towards that spot, I cannot help 

 being pleased with the view, beholding in the solitary 

 Baobabs, and the Oil-Palms, though familiar to me now for 

 weeks, forms whieh still interest me from their novelty. 



We have bought a piece of land on the right bank, extend- 

 ing from Mount Patteh to Beaufort Island, and at this 

 moment are preparing a habitation for the person who is to 

 have the charge of the station at the foot of the mountain. 

 The land is decidedly of bad quality, and a better situa- 

 tion will be sought for ; the other bank is far more suitable, 

 but it has been rejected as too low; indeed, it is now under 

 water. It is impossible for me, at present, to say any thing 

 of the nature of the vegetation. We certainly have not 

 here the usual exuberance of the tropics; perhaps, since I 

 have been on the river, I have collected three hundred 

 species. No single family gives a peculiar character to the 

 vegetation, but this depends on a mixture of many families. 

 Yet it is possible I may be deceived, for scarcely any trees 

 at present are in blossom, many have only fruit, and others 

 are without any characteristic organ. The Baobabs are abun- 

 dant, most of them have the habit of old thick oaks, only 

 they are perhaps proportionally lower, but I have met with 

 none which has answered the expectation raised by Adan- 

 son and Golberry. Among Palms, the Oil-Palm alone is 

 frequent along the river and in marshy places; the Fern 

 Palm occurs here and there, and the Cocoa extends as far as 

 Iddah. I believe that I saw through the telescope a Tree 

 Fern. Parasitical Orchidece grow occasionally, though not 

 commonly, lower down the river ; here 1 have not met with 

 °ne. A leafless Euphorbia, forming monstrously thick bushes, 

 grows on Mount Patteh. Lianes are abundant, but their 

 tree-like stems affect little the character of the landscape ; 

 they form, with the mother-stem, a thick vegetable mass. 

 The most interesting are the towering and climbing herba- 



