7. 65.] TO MRS. GRAY. 661 
“How do you prevent insects from destroying 
them?” They are all poisoned. 
** What do you poison with?” Corrosive sublimate 
dissolved in alcohol. 
“ How do you use it?” 
Here I ran off and brought back the poison-bottle, 
and applied the liquid to a specimen under the impe- 
rial nose. 
I then ran off to set down the bottle in a safe place 
on the middle table, when he followed me up and asked : 
‘“‘ How strong do you make the solution 
I gave him the answer as well as I could, when he 
turned to one of his suite :— 
“Please write that down.” 
And it was done accordingly. In the library I had 
displayed, enough to attract the eye, the bound vol- 
umes of “ Flora Brasiliensis,’ which he glanced at, 
and asked : — 
“Have you the work on the botany of the vicinity 
of Rio Janeiro?” 
I answered, Yes, thanks to Mr. Agassiz, — to whom 
the emperor had given it. 
But he seemed uneasy until he saw it, and I put 
two of the folio volumes into his hands, which seemed 
to satisfy him. 
Then, as he was passing on to the lecture-room, I 
slipped off. At head of Common, in Boston, I met C., 
who told me Dom Pedro was down at his museum at 
74 a.m. C. was not going to Hunnewell’s. . . 
I amused them with the account of the conversa- 
tion with the emperor. 
The rhododendrons, and azaleas too, most splendid. 
Nothing like it at Sua The best as well as 
the most he ever had. 
