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- 



