^6 PROCEEDIIS'GS OF THE 



Upper and Lower Styria, to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 

 accompanied by a parcel of the plants mentioned. These papers 

 were printed in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' 

 vols, xvii, & xviii, for 1846. In the course of his rambles, he 

 says : — " At an inn at the foot of the mountain [the Lantsch] the 

 people spoke a jargon that I had great difficulty in understanding, 

 and they had as much, I suppose, in comprehending me. The 

 innkeeper told me, begging my pardon, that I did not speak Grerman 

 very well, and should stay a month or two with him in the Breiteuau 

 to learn the language. I asked him if he did not think I had better 

 opportunities in Gratz. ' Oh no,' he said, ' they talk there according 

 to booiv — Nach der Schrift.' " On the same page is a description 

 of Vest, " the most untidy botanist ever known," and an account 

 which Dr. Maly gave of his herbarium. 



The next year was devoted to botanising in Dalmatia, and its 

 southern vegetation. Passing through France, he paid a flying 

 visit to England in 1844, and in the autumn of the same year went 

 to Italy. He spent the winter in Naples and visited Sicily the fol- 

 lowing spring, collecting largely and getting personally acquainted 

 with Grussone and oth(;r botanists. He remarks that he was "very 

 much struck during his excursions in the south with the circum- 

 stance that neither in the Kingdom of Naples, nor in Sicily, is 

 there anything like the scattered hamlets and cottages that we find 

 everywhere in England and Grermany — a result of the comparative 

 insecurity of life and property, and a cause of the preference of 

 southern people for the pleasure of a town life. Hence the little 

 attention paid to natural history by them, both in ancient times 

 and modern." 



In April 1846 he sailed for the Cape, and lived thirteen months 

 in Capetown ; in 1847 going to Georgetown and TJitenhage. He 

 was at the former place during the heavy rains of that spring, the 

 heaviest for 22 years, causing inundations : " after which I went 

 a journey over the Carroo in an ox-waggon, the effect of which I 

 felt for several years in the singular habit of connecting all noises 

 that I heard in my sleep with the cries of the wild animals of that 

 desert. This seems the more strange, as I am not conscious that 

 I ever dreamed of being aboard ship, although the circumstances 

 of a sea-voyage are more striking to a landsman than are those 

 attending a land-journey." He made large collections of plants, 

 and came home in 1848. 



The love of travel prompted him the next year to sail in April 

 for the United States, where he botanised till November ; then 

 proceeded to Jamaica, and stayed till August. While in Jamaica 

 he resided at Moneague, in the mountains of St. Ann's, and 

 ascended the Blue Mountain Peak. He returned by way of New 

 "York and Canada in the autumn of 1850, and reached England in 

 November. He then took a house at Hammersmith, which 

 remained his home for eight years, though he made occasional 

 continental trips, visiting Germany, France, Denmark, Norway, 

 and Italy. 



