Information respecting Botanical Travellers. 59 



sary to cut our way, we shall take four negroes with us, who will 

 also carry provisions, &c. I expect to find many curious things, and 

 only regret that our mode of travelling must preclude the possibility 

 of making large collections. My friends would, I dare say, hardly 

 recognize me in the garb that I assume during these excursions, 

 which consists of only a shirt, thin trowsers, linen shooting-jacket 

 with wide pockets, and a straw hat as broad as the Culross girders 

 used for baking the oat cakes of my native land. Neckcloth and 

 vest are incumbrances here : instead of the former, a string suspends 

 round my neck a large knife ; while a cutlass for cutting down trees 

 hangs by my side, and a huge botanical box is strapped to my back. 

 I should also mention that deep Brazilian boots of untanned yellow 

 leather incase my legs, and come up as high as the body. My ex- 

 cursions generally extend to a distance of ten or more miles, as I 

 often ride on a mule ; and when I tell you that the woods here are 

 most beautifully adorned with several arborescent species of Mela- 

 stomacea, principally of the genus Lasiandra, whose deep green foli- 

 age and purple blossoms give them the appearance of gigantic Rho- 

 dodendrons, and which are mingled with large trees of the genus 

 Cassia, covered with lovely yellow flowers, you will easily believe 

 that I return home at night loaded with novelties. 



"April 5th, 1837. " George Gardner." 



A more recent communication from Mr. Gardner has put us in 

 possession of his journal, written during his residence in the Organ 

 Mountains, which will be given in an early number of our Annals ; 

 and of a letter, dated partly at sea and partly on his arrival at Per- 

 nambuco, from which we make the following extracts. 



" On board Her Majesty's Packet Opossum, between Bahia and 

 Pernambuco, October 6, 1837. 



C( By the last packet I wrote, stating that I had determined to 

 visit Pernambuco before going south, having been advised not to 

 think of proceeding to Buenos Ayres, in consequence of the present 

 unsettled state of the country between that place and Chili. Seve- 

 ral friends, well informed on the point, concurred in this opinion ; 

 and while it is with reluctance that I give up my first intention, I 

 still think that twelve months will not be unprofitably spent in the 

 north of Brazil. Pernambuco and the adjoining provinces have been 

 less visited than the rest of this country ; and M. Riedel, the bota- 

 nist attached to M. Longsdorff's expedition, with whom I have just 

 been conversing, states, that while he has explored all the rest of 

 Brazil, he did not visit Pernambuco, a district, with which though 



