100 A BOTANICAL EXPEDITION'. 



to pursue his course. At length, after nearly a 

 year had elapsed, he embarked at Cadiz, arid hap- 

 pily accomplished the voyage in six months, arriv- 

 ing at Lima in the spring of 1778, where he 

 obtained a favourable reception from the viceroy 

 and from M. de Bordenave, an old acquaintance of 

 his illustrious friend Jussieu. 



His first botanical expedition, towards Quito, was 

 not without danger from hordes of runaway ne- 

 groes ; but he thought himself amply repaid by 

 securing an abundant harvest of plants, as well as of 

 antiquities, from the sepulchres of the ancient Peru- 

 vians. These, together with a collection of seeds, 

 a fine herbarium, and a considerable quantity of 

 platina, he immediately sent to Europe. The seeds 

 had been partly picked up in the dry season from 

 the arid sands around Lima, where they lay, blown 

 about by the wind, or stored up by ants, awaiting 

 the autumnal fogs necessary to their germination, 

 for it never rains at Lima. He accompanied his 

 collections with two manuscript treatises of his 

 own ; one on a disease which he attributed to the 

 immoderate use of certain fruits of that country ; 

 and the other on a new but useless species of 

 Laurus, which ignorant observers had reported to 

 the Spanish Government as being the true cinna- 

 mon, a mistake which he found himself obliged to 

 rectify He was subsequently employed by the 



