104 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lviii. 



his health began to give way. Under date 24th April 

 1860, he writes: "Woke up this morning paralysed in 

 my back and legs. From that day forth I was never more 

 able to sit straight up or walk about without great pain 

 and discomfort." In September of next year (1861) 

 another misfortune befell him owing to the failure of a 

 mercantile house in Guayaquil, by which he lost 6000 

 dollars, and thus was brought almost to destitution. He 

 was now under the necessity of selling his most valuable 

 and, to him, most precious books, which realised about 300 

 dollars. After spending two years on the coast of Ecuador, 

 and sixteen months on the coast of Peru, and finding it 

 impossible to work, he determined to return to England. 

 He landed at Southampton on the 27th of "May 1864. 



In addition to the results before mentioned, he gave 

 considerable attention to the Ethnography of the districts 

 through which he passed, and drew up twenty-one Indian 

 vocabularies. 



After his arrival in England he remained in London for 

 a short time, and then removed to Hurstpierpoint, where 

 he superintended the arrangement and distribution of his 

 South American mosses. This collection, originally in- 

 tended to be worked up by himself, was undertaken by 

 Mr. Mitten, and we can hardly open a page of Mitten's 

 important work, "Musci Austro- Americani," without 

 noticing plants gathered by Spruce. In 1867 he settled 

 down in lodgings at Welburn. After his arrival in York- 

 shire his health was very indifferent. Here he remained 

 nine years, during the early part of which he was unable 

 to do much work. In 1867 he writes : " I can hardly 

 write in any other way than reclining in my easy chair 

 with a large book across my knee by way of table, and 

 consequently I rarely write anything but what is absolutely 

 necessary." In January 1869 he says : " I fear I must 

 henceforth shut my eyes to cryptogams ; I have packed the 

 microscope away lest I should enter into temptation ; " and 

 in October of the same year, " I have made two attempts 

 to complete my monograph of the South American Plagio- 

 chilfe, but the sitting up to the microscope has brought 

 on bleeding of the intestines to such an extent that I 

 fear I must renounce the task altogether, to my deep 



