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Proceedings of Societies. 



the freight. This will be expensive ; but the agent here refuses to receive 

 them on any other terms, a standing order having been issued to that 

 effect. I will at the same time send a fuller account of my procedure, 

 and by later mail a statement of my intromissions will be sent to the 

 treasurer. In order that you may be early advised of the despatch of 

 the seeds, and be ready to make the necessary arrangement with the 

 secretary of the Hudson Bay Company, I will send this and the next 

 letter overland by the pony rider, via the Salt Lake City, to St Joseph, 

 in Missouri, and thence via New York to Liverpool. It will save nearly 

 three weeks, and I hope will escape the emissaries of President Davis. 



I am in good health and strong ; rough, ragged, weather-beaten, per- 

 haps a little dirty, and certainly a most unpresentable figure at the meet- 

 ing where this communication will be read. I am sleeping on a curious 

 Indian blanket, woven from the liber of Finns Strohus (is it the same as 

 the P. Strohus of the East ?), and to keep the hoar frost oiff'my blanket, 

 there is a mat (clay hulk) of the bark of Thuja gigantea. Both will, I 

 hope, at some future day, ornament the museum at the Botanic Garden. 



III. Extracts of Letters received from Mr William Milne, Old Calabar, 



Communicated by Mr John Sadler. 



Creek Town, Old Calabar, 

 June 29, 1863. 



I am fairly settled in the district of Old Calabar, exploring the creeks 

 and corners of this majestic river. Africa is certainly rich in botany and 

 other branches of natural history. Years must roll away before the 

 botany of this vast continent is thoroughly investigated, and that will 

 not be until Christianity is upon a more substantial basis. I will give 

 you one extract from my daily journal to show the superstition which 

 still exists amongst the people in Western Africa. While in the district 

 of Ikorofiong, in passing through a large native town in the Ebebo coun- 

 try, I saw a straggling shrub belonging to Bignoniacese. While in the 

 act of pulling down some of the flowers, I was surrounded by some hun- 

 dreds of men, women, and children, shouting and dancing like so many 

 fiends. At first I was inclined to think they were about to hang me in 

 front of their palaver house or heathen temple. On looking round I 

 could see no way of escape, so I held my ground, determined to have some 

 of the flowers ; but they were as determined that I should not get them. 

 At last they put me out of the town. On the following Sunday I accom- 

 panied the Rev. Zerub Baillie to several of the plantation villages, where 

 he preaches once a week. We met the Ebebo chief. I wished to shake 

 hands with him, but he would not come near. He said he was afraid of 

 the strange medicine I was making, and told Mr Baillie that 1 was not to 

 come to his town again. 



About a fortnight ago a man told me that if I went into the bush I 

 would be shot : so you see it is not all plain sailing at Calabar. But I 

 have an extensive field before me, and I am determined to make the best 

 of it, in spite of the natives, as it will not do to let them have it all their 

 own way. I will mention a few of the leading characteristics of the vege- 

 tation which have come under my own observation. 



There are five species of Melastoma, six species of Dracaena, five 

 species of Amomum, and several others belonging to Zingiberaceae. 

 There are a number of species belonging to Scrophulariaceas ; and 

 amongst them is a Digitalis, which is scattered over all waste groand. 

 Euphorbiacese and Cucurbitacese are both extensive orders here. Three 

 species of Amaryllis are abundant — one in the river, and the other two 

 spread all over the plantations. Solanaceous plants are numerous : there 



