COOL ORCHIDS. 77 
Peru and Ecuador is almost desperate. The roads 
of Colombia are good, the population civilized, 
conveniences abound, if we compare that region 
with the orchid-bearing territories of the south. 
There is a fortune to be secured by anyone who 
will bring to market a lot of O. n@veum in fair con- 
dition. Its habitat is perfectly well known. I am 
not aware that it has a delicate constitution ; but 
no collector is so rash or so enthusiastic as to try 
that adventure again, now that its perils are under- 
stood ; and no employer is so reckless as to urge 
him. The true variety of O. Hal stands in much 
the same case. To obtain it the explorer must 
march in the bed of a torrent and on the face of a 
precipice alternately for an uncertain period of 
time, with a river to cross about every day. And 
he has to bring back his loaded mules, or Indians, 
over the same pathless waste. The Roraima 
Mountain begins to be regarded as quite easy 
travel for the orchid-hunter nowadays. If I 
mention that the canoe-work on this route demands 
thirty-two portages, thirty-two loadings and un- 
loadings of the cargo, the reader can judge what a 
“ difficult road’ must be. Ascending the Roraima, 
Mr. Dressel, collecting for Mr. Sander, lost his 
herbarium in the Essequibo River. Savants alone 
are able to estimate the awful nature of the crisis 
