308 
TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. 
1 
of the fire-side did I conjure up, of the social tea-table, 
with familiar faces around it ! What a luxury seemed 
simple bread and butter ! — and to think that, perhaps in 
one short year, I might be in the midst of all this ! There 
was a pleasure in the mere thought, that made me leap 
over the long months, the weary hours, the troubles and 
annoyances of tedious journeys, that had first to be en- 
dm^ed. I passed hours in solitary walks thinking of 
home ; and never did I in former years long to be away 
in this tropic-land, with half the earnestness with which 
I now looked forward to returning back again. 
Our stay at Sao Jeronymo was prolonged by the non- 
appearance of Bernardo. Insects were not so plentiful 
even as at Jauarite ; but I generally found something in 
my walks, and obtained two fine species of Satyridm 
quite new to me. In a little patch of open bushy campo, 
which occurs about a mile back from the village, I was 
delighted to find abundance of orchids. I had never 
seen so many collected in one place ; it was a complete 
natural orchid-house. In an hour’s ramble, I noticed 
about thirty different species; — some, minute plants 
scarcely larger than mosses, and one large semi- terrestrial 
species, which grew in clumps eight or ten feet high. 
There were but few in flower, and most of them were 
very small, though pretty. One day however I was much 
delighted to come suddenly upon a magnificent flower : 
growing out of a rotten stem of a tree, just level with 
my eye, was a bunch of five or six blossoms, which were 
three inches in diameter, nearly round, and varying from 
a pale delicate straw-colour to a rich deep yellow, on the 
basal portion of the labellum. How exquisitely beau-^ i 
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