320 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



plaiting of Panama hats and to gathering Orchilla 

 (Roccella tinctoria), which abounds here on the 

 trees especially the Cactuses as it does also in 

 the neighbouring islands of Galapagos. They fish 

 very little, and that merely for their own eating. 



. . . The failure of the house of Gutierrez 

 and Co. at Guayaquil was a heavy blow to me. 

 When it suspended payment (October 11, 1861) I 

 had in their hands very nearly a thousand pounds 

 ^"700 at interest and the rest in deposit. I have 

 received the balance of interest due to me at that 

 date, but the residue, viz. 5550 dollars (Peruvian 

 or Equatorian), remains to share the fate of the 

 other debts of the firm, and if I ultimately recover 

 a thousand dollars of it I shall think myself well off. 

 The blow was so sudden that I had no time to with- 

 draw my property, especially as I was at two days' 

 distance from Guayaquil (at Chonana with the 

 Illingworths). Even Gutierrez himself did not 

 comprehend how it had happened ; but all has come 

 to light now, and it is proved to have been caused 

 entirely by the roguery of the cashier (Gavino Icaza) 

 and of the head book-keeper (Thomas Viner Clarke, 

 an Englishman, I am sorry to say), who, acting in 

 collusion, have robbed Gutierrez to the amount of 

 360,000 dollars, and possibly more. Not only had 

 they from time to time appropriated large sums of 

 ready money making the monthly balance (shown 

 to Gutierrez) always tally with the cash in the cash- 

 box, but they had shipped vast quantities of cacao 

 and other produce from the warehouses of Gutierrez 

 (unknown to him) under feigned names, and con- 

 signed to houses abroad which had no existence ; 

 and Clarke, in whom his patron reposed unbounded 



