SECOND RESIDENCE AT CAPE TOWN. 99 



pickaxe answers better in this country, where the ground is 

 often as hard as the nether millstone. Yours is, however, very 

 useful, particularly when one goes out on a half-and-half ex- 

 pedition. 



Now for Cape affairs. Within the last week I have been up 

 at five and in bed at eleven, and positively employed at botany 

 the greater part of the time. There's energy ! You see I am 

 not going to be sleepy again. I found my unnatural repose 

 comfortless enough. I have just been rejoicing for the first 

 time in a charming orchis — which perhaps Loddiges have got — 

 Bartholina pectinata. I never met it before, and you may be 

 sure was extravagantly delighted with its beautiful lacerated 

 labellum. I have a couple of dozen specimens in process of 

 drying, some of which shall find their way to Wellclose Square. 



My present whim is publishing, and I am actually busily 

 engaged in two botanical works. The first the briefest introduc- 

 tion possible to the science, with a copious glossary of its terms 

 annexerl. Such a book is very much wanted here, where 'tis 

 my belief the raw material of botanists is to be had in abundance 

 were they only put on the loom and set going. I at least shall 

 try the effect of a little exertion. This introduction will 

 appear as the forerunner of a much more useful (and I 

 may add laborious) affair, namely, the " Genera of South 

 African Plants," arranged according to the natural orders. I 

 hope it will be ready for the press in three or four months, not 

 sooner ; but really it is a heavy job, particularly to a person who 

 has to seek his materials through a variety of books, and who 

 is unavoidably ignorant of a great many of the genera per- 

 sonally. It is humiliating to be obliged to copy, as I shall be, so 

 much from others ; but as I look on this present work as merely 

 an attempt to place a useful manual in the hands of persons 

 here who have no other means of acquiring information, I am 

 willing to submit to the character of a compiler. If the book 

 proves really useful, I shall not want materials for correcting 

 and enlarging a second edition, for specimens will naturally 

 flow from all parts of the country when people find that there is 

 a centre of information established in Cape Town. The final 

 object of my ambition is a Flora of South Africa, south of the 

 tropic. This, should it ever be published, is a very distant 

 affair. 



n 2 



