PLANTAE LINDHEIMERIANAE. 129 
was so little able to warm the room that a certain doctor, 
who daily jotted down his notes, was compelled to use two 
pens, so that, by warming one after another, the ink would 
not freeze while writing. Who then can blame that, with 
such an outlook upon a North American winter, a horror 
jrigidus overcame us and an irresistible desire for the South 
overmastered us? 
“Yet once more we held a great ‘Commers,’ for which at 
this time (1834), the material had to be hauled from St. Louis, 
a day’s journey away. Out of the unhinged doors of our 
great log-house a long table was made and in the evening the 
courtyard was filled with the saddled horses of our guests, 
so that it appeared as if a squadron of cavalry had entered 
and was seated around our long table in a joyful banquet. 
““A few days later, six of the company, who were the fore- 
runners of a southern emigration, took passage on a steam- 
boat down the Mississippi with the intention of making an 
expedition on foot through Texas and Mexico.” 
uring October the travelers lingered in New Orleans try- 
ing to find some way to get to Texas, which at this time was 
a terra incognita, the borderland between two hostile civiliza- 
tions and ravaged alternately by bandits and Indians, and 
not even a map of the country could be found. Three of 
their number became discouraged and returned to St. Louis, 
and so the trip overland with packhorses to the City of Mex- 
ico was reluctantly abandoned. While here, one Baron von 
Seefeld endeavored to enlist them in a filibustering expedi- 
tion to Mexico in an attempt to restore Bustamente to the 
Presidency, and another proposed that they accompany a 
vessel outfitting to search for the hidden treasure of the pirate 
Lafitte—another name for a marauding voyage against 
Mexican commerce. Finally they secured passage on a coast- 
ing schooner bound for Vera Cruz and soon found themselves 
in the tierra caliente of the tropics with the snow-clad Orizaba 
looming in the distance. 
They waited here for a few days till a pack-train set out 
for the interior and accompanied it to the new German set- 
tlement at Cordoba. Here Lindheimer and Otto Friederich 
built themselves a cabin on a spur of Mt. Orizaba and made 
9 
