io8 THE WOODLANDS ORCHIDS 



glorious Cattleyas to them are what a primrose was to 

 Peter Bell. 



The obvious, unquestionable truth that Laelia purpurata is 

 nothing but a weed has suggested some unorthodox thoughts, 

 as 1 considered it, ' pottering about ' my houses. This is 

 not the place to set them down at length. But we have 

 reached a less important part of the collection ; I may 

 chatter for a moment. 



All things are grandest in the hot zone, from mountains 

 to plagues. Excepting the Mississippi and the Yang-tse- 

 Kiang, all the mightiest rivers even are there. We have 

 no elephants, nor lions, nor anacondas ; no tapong trees 

 three hundred feet high, nor ceibas almost as tall ; no 

 butterflies ten inches across, no storms that lay a province 

 waste and kill fifty thousand mortals. Further, all things 

 that are most beautiful dwell within the Tropics — tigers, 

 giraffes, palm-trees, fish, snakes, insects, flowers. Further 

 still, the most intelligent of beasts are there — apes and 

 monkeys. 



It may well be doubted whether man, the animal, is an 

 exception. In this very country of Brazil, Wallace found 

 among the Indians ' a development of the chest such as 

 never exists, I believe, in the best-formed European.' No 

 race of the Temperate Zone approaches the Kroomen in 

 muscular 'force, and negroes generally are superior. The 

 strength of the Borneo Dyaks I myself have noted with 

 amazement. Black Papuans are giants, and the brown 

 variety excel any white race in vigour. The exception is 

 that most interesting Negrito strain, represented by a few 

 thousands here and there from Ceylon to the Philippines. 

 But even they, so small and wretched, have marvellous 

 strength. 



Thus all natural things rise to their highest level in the 

 hot zones — I have to put the case very roughly, for this is a 



