1910-1911.] ,jg 



on a cart bound for Belfast." " On another occasion when he was 

 on a tramp through the mountains near Sawel, at the junction of 

 the Counties of Derry and Tyrone, he dropped his copy of the 

 pocket edition of " Babington's Flora," in which were many 

 marks, and on which he set much value, as he had it for many 

 years. He went back to try and find the book but failed to do so, 

 and then found himself benighted between nine and ten o'clock. 

 Afraid of going further astray, if he walked on in any one direction, 

 he spent the five hours of darkness (the time was the month of 

 July) in walking up and down the same bit to keep himself from 

 getting chilled." This was not the only occasion on which he 

 spent nights out on the mountains in inaccessible districts, 

 especially among the Derry mountains, and such exposure he 

 thought was the cause of the rheumatism from which he suffered 

 in later life. 



Stewart possessed a vein of dry humour which was very 

 delicious sometimes, and some of the accounts he wrote home to 

 his friends of his adventures were very humorous. One or two 

 instances may be selected. Writing to Mr. Swanston from Rathlin 

 he says, " I have seen Bruce's castle. Poor Bruce he was no use, 

 he could'nt keep his crown in the family, but had to let the noble 

 Stewarts succeed to him. His spider too is played out. The 

 Stewart has got it also. All bosh about its lesson of perseverance. 

 Let it try its thirteen times now to get out of my bottle. It 

 won't do." 



When Naturalists from across the water visited Belfast they 

 used to call and see Stewart, and often he went with them to show 

 some of the rare plants of the neighbourhood, such as Rosa 

 hibei nica, or going to Colin Glen or Cave Hill, or to fish up 

 Zannichellia polycarpa from the sewage in the shallow drains by 

 the harbour. 



One day he accompanied a botanist from Oxford, to roily- 

 more Park. There was difficulty in making a bargain for a cai ( 

 Newcastle, and Stewart maintained that half a crown was enough 



v 



