36 CRUISE OF THE BARRERA 



of these was a German named Gundlach. He came 

 to Cuba with Louis Pf eiff er in 1 830 and died but a 

 few years ago. Contemplating only a short visit 

 to the island, so fascinated did he become with its 

 charms he never again left its shores save for 

 short periods. His entire life was devoted to the 

 study of Cuban natural history, and because of a 

 zealot's contempt for the material things of life he 

 accepted willingly the sufferings of poverty as a 

 price for freedom to study. In his old age he sold 

 his valuable collections to the Cuban Government 

 in order to raise money to rescue from want a 

 family that had formerly befriended him, they 

 having lost their fortune in the civil wars. I once 

 asked Torre, who knew him, what manner of man 

 was Gundlach and he replied: "He was a saint. " 



Charles Wright, an American collector of plants 

 for Asa Gray and Ghiesbach, spent four years in 

 Cuba during the latter fifties and early sixties. 

 With a long patriarchal beard, taciturn and un- 

 social, he was a man of great physical strength and 

 endurance. At that time the Cuban mountains 

 were overrun with brigands and outlaws of every 

 description and to travel among them required 

 nerve. Wright, without speaking a word of 



