xxn ON THE PACIFIC COAST 315 



when I can analyse them microscopically. So soon 

 as the plants are dried I pack them into other paper 

 and add the labels from my notes. As it often 

 happens that, at each packing, I have not two plants 

 of even the same natural order, the risk of trans- 

 position is very small. Indeed, so completely does 

 the reading over of my notes recall the features of 

 the plants, that I feel sure if I were shown the 

 whole of my plants classified in your herbarium, 

 and on blank paper, I could, from consulting my 

 notes, put to them the proper numbers and localities 

 without making perhaps a single mistake. As to 

 positive errors of observation, I am as liable as any 

 other mortal. I would wish to speak with all 

 modesty on that head ; and working often in boats, 

 or in dismal huts where a squall would suddenly 

 enter the open doorway and disperse both specimens 

 and labels, there must occasionally have been some 

 transposition of both in gathering them up again. 

 This risk of the blowing away or dropping out of 

 labels was, in fact, what made me give up putting 

 labels to the plants as they were drying. 



I have gathered a few plants since I came here, but the rainy 

 season is now reaching its height and all around I have deep 

 mud and water. The village is scarcely 300 yards from the faun 

 house where I live, yet I cannot go thither on foot, except with 

 india-rubber boots. Cnpnirni /^n/rin/m (Scroph.) grows about 

 in moist places as Ctnt/o///>t<-(i s/>iui/<i (Gentians) does on the 

 A ma/on, and looks not unlike it. The arboivMvnl vegetation is 

 scanty but novel. The finest tree' is a ( ';es;ilpinia with bipinnate 

 mimosreoid foliage I cannot reduce it to any described genus. 

 There are several arborescent Capparides all new to me: but 

 Cratu'ra /a/>i<>/</,'s is an old acquaintance, and abounds as it did 

 on the Ama/.on. The Leguminos;e are mostly out of llouer 

 now, but 1 recognise none of them by the 1 foliage, unless one 

 be Bowdichia pnl>c$icns. Guayaquil is noted for its fruits, and 

 the abundance and variety brought to the port for sale every 

 morning in summer are truly astonishing. Many of them d 



