128 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
our enthusiastic friend could manage to select and 
dry such as she wanted, and occasionally to examine 
those that were new to her. If I remember right, 
not days or months, but even years, passed in this 
way. Botany and conchology relieved the weari- 
someness of reading, and gave to her long period of 
sickness a degree of relief perfectly inconceivable 
to those who possess no such resources. 
(74.) An anecdote of a late noble and muni- 
ficent patron of natural history — Sir Joseph 
Banks — well illustrates what we are now re- 
commending. When that enterprising naturalist, 
leaving the comforts and the luxuries of wealth, 
embarked with Solander to share the dangers and 
privations of a circumnavigating voyage,— arrived at 
Rio de Janeiro, the jealousy of the Portuguese autho- 
rities was so great that not one of the party was per- 
mitted to land. This prohibition must have been 
excessively mortifying to all; but how much more so 
to Sir Joseph and his companion, who beheld from 
the deck a noble and richly wooded country, covered 
with tropical vegetation, and abounding in unknown 
plants! But the celebrated botanists did not despair. 
Having taken in some live stock, and having still 
one or two sheep and goats, they were permitted to 
receive fresh fodder every day from the shore. No 
sooner did it come on board, than Sir Joseph and 
the Doctor began their herborisings: the bundles of 
grass and herbs were diligently examined, and many 
new plants were found, either in flower or in seed ; 
the former were carefully dried, and many of the 
latter subsequently vegetated in the hothouses of 
England. Pecuniary reward induced these bota- 
