BOTANICAL INFORMATION, 207 
the Rio San Francisco. lintend to go up this river to Sabara 
and Villa Rica, from which latter town I shall again do my- 
self the pleasure of writing to you. There too I trust to find 
letters from you and my other friends; and as it will then, 
(in the end of May or beginning of June,) be more than a 
year since I shall have heard from Europe, I hope not to 
be disappointed in this expectation.* In the desert country 
where I now am, one hears nothing, not even the news of 
Brazil. 
* As regards money matters, I need not tell you that a 
journey like this is attended with no little expense. My 
* The subjoined Stanzas, penned by Mr Gardner, under the influence 
of those feelings which are so creditable to one far separated from home 
and friends, were sent along with these letters to a young correspondent in 
Scotland. ‘They were never intended to meet the public eye; but we 
venture to insert them here, as a proof of the superior education and ami- 
able disposition of this zealous young Naturalist. : 
Stanzas, written in the Interior of Brazil. 
“ I wander alone on a distant strand,— 
But deem ye that thoughts of my father-land, 
Bringing bright visions of by-gone days, 
Ne'er warm my heart with their fervid rays ? 
'That its mountains and valleys, the friends of my heart, 
Can e'er from the well-spring of memory depart ? 
No !—all that was dear in my boyhood's time 
Is dearer still in this distant clime. 
* I wander alone, and often look 
For the primrose bank by the rippling brook, 
Which, wakened to life by vernal beams, 
An emblem of youth and of beauty seems ; 
And I ask where the Violet and Daisy grow ? 
But a breeze-borne voice in whisperings low, 
Swept from the north o'er southern seas 
Tells me I'm far from the land of these. 
* I wander alone, and I listen in vain 
For the clear sweet note of the skylark's strain, 
As it breaks on the ear from her home on high 
At the gleam of morn in the eastern sky : 
