626 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
The season is this year very irregular. We should now 
have dry weather; but we have continual showers of rain. 
Itis a pity that there is no possibility of my providing my- 
self with books and instruments, to make physical and astro- 
nomical observations in that part of Guyana I am now ready 
to explore; and of which we know little more than of the 
land in the moon. Rivers, not much inferior to the Esse- 
quibo, are not even laid down on our chart; or, where this 
is the case, little more is given than the embouchures. 
What a Frenchman has lately called the Alençon, I now 
know positively to be the Marowini, which joins the Tapa- 
noni (Tapanehoni), under the 4? N. Lat., and comes in a S. 
E. direction very far from the interior.” 
F. N. Hostmann. 
Botanical Intelligence from the Swan River. 
Since we published the last extracts from Mr. Drummond's 
letters, (p. 397 of the present volume) in which it was men- 
tioned that his fine collections were to come to England on 
board the * Kilmaurs," the most alarming reports were given 
in the Newspapers, respecting the safety of that vessel, and it 
was believed she would never reach Europe. On this account, 
our fears were greatly relieved by the arrival of letters from 
the Swan River, in which we are assured that they are shipped 
in the * Shepherd,” addressed to the care of Messrs. Sewel, 
Norman and Sewel, London; and these gentlemen have had 
the goodness to inform us, that the vessel in question, with 
the plants on board, has reached Batavia on her way to 
England. 
Hawthornden Farm, Toodjay Valley, 
April 13, 1842. 
Your letter of May 24, 1841, is just come to hand. The 
books you sent me first, have proved of the greatest use to 
me. I have made up for sale exactly 1000 species, of which, 
738 are Dicotyledones, 249 Monocotyledones, and 12 Acotyle- 
