348 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
that, leading with us a simple and peaceful life, we 
may end our days together. 
With this I await your reply, desiring that it 
may find you well. Your truest heart-friend sighs 
to see and to embrace you. 
Manuel Santander. 
Additio7t. — If convenient to you, and you con- 
sider that Pachito might be useful to you, and you 
will tell me how he may get there, I will give him 
to you, Sefior Ricardo, that he may serve you as a 
companion and assist you in something. 
(So endeth the epistle according to Santander.) 
R. S. 
[Nearly two years later, in a letter to Mr. Daniel 
Hanbury from Welburn (dated December 31, 1868), 
we have the conclusion of the long story of the 
repeated efforts to get flowers and fruits of the 
much-desired Canelo or Cinnamon tree of Quito. 
This tree and its spicy bark were known to the 
Spanish conquerors of Peru and Ecuador, and 
has been an article of commerce ever since ; the 
great forest of Canelos was so named after it ; 
many travellers and botanists have traversed this 
forest, including the enthusiastic Richard Spruce, 
yet no one had yet been able to obtain or even to 
see its flowers or fruit. Some of the causes of this 
failure are indicated in a letter from Santander, 
dated " Ambato, November 12, 1868." He therein 
describes the extraordinary series of accidents and 
misfortunes which made all his efforts of no avail ; 
and as it also serves to illustrate further the 
