22 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



and the men their real sugar-stalk ; where they might tickle their noses 

 with the fragrance from rich pine-apples and oranges, and where their 

 tables might be loaded with the choicest vegetable productions/' 



BOTANICAL INFOEMATION- 



of recent Letters /? 



June, 1855. 



"I arrived here on the 1st instant, and have been botanizing in the 

 neighbourhood. It is wretched ground for Alg^ ; and a trip to New- 

 castle (Hunter's Eiver), from which I have just returned, has little re- 

 sult, except that I collected Martenna elegans in plenty. 



" I have now engaged a passage in a missionary vessel, for a cruise 

 among the Tonga and the Peejee Islands. We are to visit every island 

 of these groups, I am told, staying a few days at each, and to be ab- 

 sent about four months, when we return to Sydney : this ought to be 

 about October next. About that time Sir William Denison will be 

 making a coasting tour to all the colonial ports north of Sydney, and 

 has offered to take me with him, should I have then returned from the 

 Teejees. I am anxious to see those islands, for the sake of visiting the 

 coral banks, and finding more Vanvoorstias. I remain with the vessel, 

 which is a most comfortable one, fitted up like a yacht, where I have a 

 cabin to myself, and there is a large saloon. She belongs to the Wes- 

 leyan missionaries, to whom Henry Christy gave me a letter of intro- 

 duction from their secretary in London. I had first asked a passage 

 in the * Herald,' but she will be absent nine or ten months on her next 

 cruise, a great part of which will be deep-sea soundings, to prove the 

 non-existence of reefs laid down in the charts ; so Captain Denham dis- 

 couraged my going. 



" I have still nearly a fortnight before the vessel starts, which I shall 

 occupy in short excursions round Sydney. As yet very few flowerino^ 

 plants are in blossom, but there are some. Luminous fungi were very 

 common when I arrived (in heavy rains), but have disappeared, I 

 collected a single specimen of Jseroe, and have dried it tolerably." 



€€ 



June 13, 1855. 



" I have just time to send you a few lines, to keep you au courant of 



