FEBRUARY, 1913.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 45 
THE ROMANCE OF ORCHID HUNTING. 
AN “Orchid Collector” writes to the pages of Horticulture :—‘‘ Mr. P. 
Harvey Middleton has written a very interesting article about Orchid Hunt- 
ing in the American Homes and Gardens Magazine. The narrative is very 
charming, but he has been so grossly misinformed that the whole thing 
appears to be a ‘Fairy Tale.’ It isa very peculiar circumstance that very 
few people can write about Orchid collecting without letting their wild 
imaginations work wonders, which they spring on the man who later takes 
those fibs as truths, and adorns them with his florid language. In the 
article in question there is a reference to a typical example of the kind of 
stuff that Orchid hunters are made of. 
“He has been at death’s door with the fevers of the tropics and tropical 
swamps, he has been robbed and deserted by his guides and left alone to 
starve in Andean mountain forests, and has been attacked, tormented and 
all but eaten by hundreds of big black ants. He has had to fight treacherous 
guides for his life, and has had escapes too numerous to describe. 
** It was while engaged in hunting Orchids in Colombia for the Philadel- 
phia Orchid Queen that a revolution broke out. Barrault was seized by 
Colombian soldiers and forced to fight for them. . . . Philosophically 
accepting his fate he led a regiment of the Colombians to battle ane 
fell severely wounded, and panic seized his followers who turned and fled. 
** And so Barrault, the Orchid-hunting soldier, was thrown into prison 
by the rebels and there left to get well as best he could. Slowly, but 
surely, his fine constitution pulled him around, and one night about six 
months later he floored his guard and got away. Two days and nights 
brought him to the forest, where he knew rare Orchids were to be found. 
Living on roots and herbs that former experience had taught him were 
good for food, Barrault gradually worked his way through the forest until 
he came to a lonely village off the track of the opposing armies. Here he 
secured another set of guides and started off on the trail of a wonderful 
snow-white Orchid which had been graphically described to him by a half- 
naked Indian in the streets of Bogota—‘ An Orchid so big,’ said the native, 
clasping hands and rounding arms, ‘and as white as snow on the mountain 
tops. I will take you to it.’ 
‘* Barrault headed an expedition, that was fraught with many adventures, 
to the mountain haunt of the marvellously big flower. Hardly had he started 
before the first of them occurred. Barrault’s saddle girth broke as his mule 
was stepping gingerly along a narrow mountain path at the edge of a two 
thousand foot precipice, over which the Orchid hunter promptly disappeared. 
He was caught in a tree growing out of the side one hundred feet below, 
and after his guides, peering cautiously down the chasm, had recovered 
