88 MR. SPRUCE'S EXCURSION ON THE AMAZON. 
slaves, big and little, numbers of fowls, turkeys, guinea-fowls, goats, 
dogs, land-tortoises, and other unclean beasts. I should mention that 
this house claims half our yard, and has a verandah continuous with 
ours: and then you will understand how on our return we found both 
yard and verandah befouled and worse than useless to us. A few live 
plants, that we had left in the verandah, under charge of a slave of 
Mr. Hislop's, he had the precaution to place in an outhouse which we 
have, but there, for want of light and air, some of them had died. 
Since then our live plants have stood in the same outhouse, as near 
as possible to the window (kept wide open), and would do very well 
were it not that the niggers and the fowls contrive to enter and play 
sundry pranks with them,— such as nipping off the leading shoot. 
What I have for Kew are now all in the case, fastened down, and only 
half the glass roof remains to be put on. Yesterday morning, when I 
went to look at them, I found one of my Sucu-ubas broken off by the 
root :—there were two; one from a cutting that I struck last November 
has grown beautifully, the other was a young plant; it is the latter 
that is destroyed. I procured another cutting, but I shall be obliged 
to fasten up the case before I can ascertain whether it has taken root. 
The other plants are en bonne santé, but they will have a severe ordeal 
to go through between here and Pará, and it is not worth my while 
going the tedious journey to Pará and back to take care of them: I 
am very desirous they should reach you alive. The two Melastomacee 
are very pretty things, and I send also seeds of both. Will not the 
“Jara” palm be Leopoldinia pulchra, Mart.? I send its fruit and 
leaves, but the spadices (from which the fruit has fallen), though not 
very large, are too large to be crammed into Mr. Bentham’s boxes. 
I send you thirty-five packets of seeds, many of them of species 
occurring in my dried collection. Some of these seeds and fruits are 
curious, and you may possibly like to put a portion of such into the 
museum. I could send many succulent fruits, but I have nothing to 
put them in; it is impossible to get at once a sufficient number to fill 
one of our big barrels. Mr. Wallace brought with him, for preserving 
reptiles, &c., a number of patent cylindrical earthen jars, with tops of 
the same material encircled by a metallic rim; a half turn fastens 
these effectually. If you can make out where these jars are to be had, 
I wish you would send me some—were it only half-a-dozen ;—I could 
fill a part or the whole of these, as materials offered, and then de- 
spatch the contents to England in a barrel, reserving the jars for future 
