EXPEDITION TO THE OKINOCO. 283 



ing the Spanish colonies without the royal permission, Fraser 

 embarked for Havana intending to make a collection of plants. 

 He suffered shipwreck, and, after enduring three days of misery 

 upon a sandbank forty miles from the coast, he was picked up 

 by some fishermen of Matanzns, and arrived here in a state of 

 complete destitution. His name and occupation enlisted at 

 once my sympathy on his behalf. I received him into my 

 house, supplied him with money and all else he could require, 

 and, through the influence of my friends, obtained permission, 

 for him to travel through the island of Cuba, which, but for 

 his shipwreck, he would have found great difficulty ill accom- 

 plishing. I sincerely believe that both he and his son a 

 worthy and amiable young man would be exceedingly pleased 

 to do me a service. I proposed to his father that the youth 

 should accompany me in my expedition to Mexico; but the 

 young man is afraid to trust himself among the Spaniards, 

 being unacquainted with their language, and is hastening back 

 to London, to publish a description of the plants l^e has col- 

 lected in Kentucky. 



' After visiting Mexico and California, I purpose going to 

 Acapulco, where I hope to join Captain Baudin and complete 

 with him my proposed expedition round the world. 1 



4 1 think I have already mentioned to you (pray excuse my 

 bad German, for during the last two years I have spoken 

 nothing but French and Spanish), that on my return I intend 

 to undertake the publication of my plants. In looking over 

 the two cases which I have committed to Fraser, should you 

 find any new species that seem to you particularly worthy of 

 attention, you are, of course, at liberty to introduce specimens 

 of them providing you do so sparingly, so as not to include 

 the whole of the unknown varieties into your admirable 

 treatise. Bonpland and I shall esteem it an honour to have 

 our names mentioned by you in so remarkable a work. My 

 leason for asking you not to publish all, or even many, of the 

 new varieties, is because they cannot be so well described 

 from dried specimens as from the drawings we have made 

 from nature. . . . 



1 This plan, as is .well known, was never accomplished. 



