320 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 
plaiting of Panama hats and to gathering Orchilla 
[Roccella tinctoria), which abounds here on the 
trees — especially the Cactuses — as it does also in 
the neighbouring islands of Galapagos. They fish 
very little, and that merely for their own eating. 
. . . The failure of the house of Gutierrez 
and Co. at Guayaquil was a heavy blow to me. 
When it suspended payment (October ii, 1861) I 
had in their hands very nearly a thousand pounds — 
£joo at interest and the rest in deposit. I have 
received the balance of interest due to me at that 
date, but the residue, viz. 5550 dollars (Peruvian 
or Equatorian), remains to share the fate of the 
other debts of the firm, and if I ultimately recover 
a thousand dollars of it I shall think myself well off. 
The blow was so sudden that I had no time to with- 
draw my property, especially as I was at two days' 
distance from Guayaquil (at Chonana with the 
Illingworths). Even Gutierrez himself did not 
comprehend how it had happened ; but all has come 
to light now, and it is proved to have been caused 
entirely by the roguery of the cashier (Gavino Icaza) 
and of the head book-keeper (Thomas Viner Clarke, 
an Englishman, I am sorry to say), who, acting in 
collusion, have robbed Gutierrez to the amount of 
360,000 dollars, and possibly more. Not only had 
they from time to time appropriated large sums of 
ready money — making the monthly balance (shown 
to Gutierrez) always tally with the cash in the cash- 
box, but they had shipped vast quantities of cacao 
and other produce from the warehouses of Gutierrez 
(unknown to him) under feigned names, and con- 
signed to houses abroad which had no existence ; 
and Clarke, in whom his patron reposed unbounded 
