THE ORCHID WORLD. 



137 



we enter the forest, after clearing with 

 difficulty a path through the dense growmg 

 bamboo and bramble bushes, and within a 

 short distance we spy several exquisitely 

 bright scarlet coloured, single - standing 

 blooms, the colour of Sophronitis grandiflora, 

 on short hair-like stems sticking out of the 

 moist, green moss which covers here every 

 stem and branches of the trees ; it is the 

 flower that betrays the existence of the plant, 

 Utricularia Campbelliana, a diminutive crea- 

 ture, smaller than the flower itself. What 

 care we bestowed all the tune on these 

 precious pigmies may well be imagined. Here, 

 too, we could gather ajiother interesting, 

 dwarf-growing specimen in the shape of a 

 pretty dark purple coloured Masdevallia, 

 which afterwards proved to be M. guianensis. 



That we would attempt to make an ascent 

 to the top of Roraima again was a settled 

 matter between us right from the beginning. 

 Both of us had undertaken it once before, 

 though independently and at different periods. 

 But on this occasion our ambition carried us 

 a step further. We were determined to risk 

 what neither others nor ourselves had done 

 before, namely, to spend at least one night on 

 the top, so as to have sufficient time to get as 

 far as possible a thorough good look round 

 the place. Before putting this scheme into 

 execution, however, I was considerably con- 

 cerned over the insufficient quantity of 

 Cattleyas we had secured so far, which, after 

 all, were the chief object of this expedition. 

 Knowing that I might succeed in getting more 

 Cattleyas, if only in limited number, on the 

 Ru-imeru, a tributary of the Kukenaam, some 

 25 miles south of Roraima, I decided for a 

 quick excursion in that direction. I had been 

 to that spot once before, and with the excep- 

 tion of the brothers Schomburgk and myself 

 it had never been visited by any other 

 traveller. So after ordering one gang of 

 Indians to get during my absence a path 

 cleared up the slope above the savannah as 

 far as the cliff and then along the ledge 

 leading to the summit, and while another 

 party under Seyler's directions had to con- 

 tinue the collecting of plants in the neighbour- 

 hood, I started off with six men in a southerly 



direction following the course of the 

 Kukenaam and reached Ru-imeru after a two 

 days' sharp but comfortable march. On the 

 way we passed Schomburgk's Our Village, 

 but of this nothing more but a few decayed 

 clay walls were to be seen. Seventeen times 

 we had to cross different creeks and rivers on 

 this two days' march, amongst them the 

 Kukenaam alone seven times and its water 

 reached up to our waist. We made a camp 

 below the Fall, which from a height of some 

 300 feet descends in seven cascades. Rii- 

 imeru means the Fall of the Rii, Rii is the 

 name of the river, imeru the Fall. Our crop 

 of Cattleyas was not exactly a very large one, 

 but still it swelled our stock by some 250 very 

 nice plants. 



Our return journey to Roraima was done by 

 the wish of my Indians by a different route, 

 on which at one place they called my atten- 

 tion to a huge quadrangular shaped rock, the 

 front side of which was covered with symmetri- 

 cally carved, antique Indian hieroglyphic 

 scriptures, similar to those to be seen at the 

 Mission Waraputa on the Essequibo. To my 

 disappointment a heavy torrential rain broke 

 loose when we passed that spot, which 

 prevented me from taking a photographic 

 view of this interesting Indian relic. 



On my return to our camp Seyler informed 

 me that the path was so far cleared for our 

 ascent. We prepared some very light loads 

 for some ten men, who offered to accompany 

 us, hut we took no hammocks, as we knew 

 there were no trees there to sling them from, 

 and we started early in the morning of the 

 20th November. Fortunately no rain fell 

 that day, and we found that our Indian 

 engineers made a fairly good clearing up the 

 forest slope as far as the cliff only, but no 

 further up the ledge, which runs in an oblique 

 way along the cliff to the summit. 



Passing over the swampy savannah, where 

 we obtained, as I stated previously, our 

 botanical collections, and which lies 5,600 

 feet above sea-level, we first came through a 

 dense bush of low trees, seldom stepping on 

 solid soil, but instead, hand and feet fully 

 occupied, over masses of vegetation dense 

 enough to bear our own weight ; higher up, 



