Ixxvi ApjJendix. 



be superb plants in a stove, and I hojje T may succeed in sending them alive to 

 England, as this is the only way by which, you will be able to see them, it 

 being quite impossible to dry specimens ; they will rot in spite of anything that 

 can be done. I am very sorry I never thought of taking some bottles of 

 spirit up the mountains with me to put them in, or of writing descriptions of 

 them on the spot. There is also growing here another very lai-ge-leaved plant, 

 which I at first took for another Cyrtandra ; it, however, turned out to be a 

 Cinchoniaceous plant, with enormous deciduous stipules and thick downy 

 flowers three inches long, which I never found but once. 



One great disadvantage of going alone on these expeditions was that I 

 could not carry any paper with me, and by the time I returned to Papeite the 

 greater portion of my large specimens of ferns was spoiled by the heat, or by 

 having been crammed too hard into my tin box; and as I had but very little 

 time to spare, and it was very difficult to get any person to do anything out of 

 the ordinary way, I never could manage to find time to make any kind of 

 straps for carrying a portfolio on my shoulders, and it would have been quite 

 beyond my powers to have carried it any other way up the Tahitian 

 mountains. 



In coming back I lost my way, in consequence of overlooking the proper 

 place for descending from the main ridge to the watering place I have spoken 

 of. I found out my error in time to have rectified it if I had pleased, but 

 knowing that I was on a ridge which must lead down to the Yallee de la 

 Heine, which I was perfectly acquainted with, I thought I would try if it 

 might not be an easier road than the one by which I came. I had, however, 

 abundant occasion to repent of my temerity, for when I arrived at the end of 

 the high part of the ridge, and had descended a long slope of earth which it 

 was impossible to think of climbing again, I found myself cut off" from the 

 valley by a precipice, which I was obliged to skirt for about a mile, through long 

 grass which cut my face and hands, and bind-weeds which constantly tripped 

 me up, over logs and stones, momentarily in danger of falling over the face of 

 the cliff", which, after all, was only about 50 feet high. I at length found a 

 break in the rock through which I managed to slip, and the rest of the way down 

 to the valley, although it was over loose stones over which 1 was obliged to 

 make my way in a sitting posture for fear of falling, was comparatively easy. 

 If it had not been raining a deluge the whole time not one of ray specimens 

 would have been worth anything by tbe time I got to Papeite ; they would 

 have been dry ; as it was they were terribly bruised and torn, and, of course, 

 many lost. Another time I lost my whole day's work through missing my 

 way in a valley at the commencement of my journey in the dark, and trying 

 to recover myself by climbing the side of a hill covered with fern {Gleiehenia), 

 which turned out to be so strong and high that, although I had not above 



