94 . JOURNEY OF DR. CHARLES BOLLE. 
days for Palma. Our excellent savant, Leopold de Buch, forbade me 
to return to Berlin without having visited the mighty caldera. 
The climate at Orotava is far different from that of Santa Cruz. 
Here fogs are frequent, and heavy clouds hang over the forests, where 
no doubt the rain is falling. As I passed the high sloping plateau of 
the Rodeos, the cold was very sensible, and I was wetted to the skin. 
Thus it is, that in the upper regions the malady of the potatoes con- 
tinues, but on the hot coast at Santa Cruz, in Fuerteventura, aud Lan- 
cerotte, where indeed they were little cultivated, they are entirely free 
from this pest: it seems that heat and drought arrest its progress. 
I have visited the garden of acclimatization, peopled at present not 
. with plants, but with souvenirs. However there are still some very 
fine things, and nothing is irrevocably lost. The humble medianero 
(peasant), who presides over its destinies, has preserved a certain vene- 
ration for Flora and the Dryads. Yesterday I was invited to the 
garden of Don Francisco Ventoso, to see a rare and precious tree 
which no one in the country knew; the Duke of Saxe-Weimar and 
. the Russian Prince Bragation, both amateurs of horticulture, had been 
confronted in vain with this vegetable enigma. Judge of my surprise 
when I recognized in this tree a magnificent Jatropha Curcas! In this 
garden I found a noble Eucalyptus, from New Holland. The Statice 
arborea is likewise cultivated here, but I am to be taken to-morrow to 
see better specimens of this fine Siempreviva on the roof of the Laza- 
retto near the port. 
_ And now you may well inquire when I am to return to the Goria 
Would that I could set out instanter. The voyage on board the great 
steamers is far more agreeable, and even shorter, than that from one of 
ie Canaries to another in their dirty coasting vessels; but the climate 
the Cape Verds, with which I am now thoroughly acquainted, 
opposed to this. It would be as fruitless to botanize there now as 
t Paris in December. During the dry season all nature sleeps; then 
come the torrential rains of August and September, when no reason- 
able being quits his retreat for an instant. Even within, how could 
plants be dried where clothes, shoes, furniture, everything is covered 
with its appropriate mucor? Then too the reign of fever commences. 
towards the end of October the “ es/azaó das agoas” is over, and when 
time comes be certain that I shall mount the breach. : 
