IV 
Obituary . — David Thomas G wynne- Vaughan. 
is 2-6 ft. sunk in water for the extent of many miles on either side of the 
free stream.’ 
‘ Every common weed in the streets is completely new to me, and 
the size and beauty of the flowers in the waste spaces are very impressive — 
every one is new to me, and I am feeling very confused with it all, 
when I think that the wealth of the Virgin Forest has yet to be en- 
countered/ 
The next extract is from a letter written just after his return to Kew : 
‘ For a description of the journey along thousands of miles of river, 
flanked by ancient Forest over ioo ft. high, the strange beasts in the water 
and on the land, the occasional settlements we met with, and their in- 
habitants, the Indians almost white and quite pleasant fellows that we 
came across, the miles that I have walked in the half-flooded, damp, and 
heated “Gapo” or low-lying Forest, with the thermometer at 90° in the 
shade, alone with a single Indian guide and a flask of the local “ 40-rod 
exterminator ” — of all these anon. Of snakes and sun — but as Rudyard 
would remark, “ That ’s another story ”. These I must keep until the 
fortunate hour in which we next meet. 
‘ Myself and my companion were travelling against time, so I’m sorry 
to say my botanical results were only meagre, and I am haunted by an 
appropriate quotation : 
“ Ah, fool was I and blind ; 
The worst I stored with titter toil , 
The best I left behind.” 
I’m going to fire this off at a good many ; an apt quotation is the best sort 
of excuse.’ 
On Sept. 1 6, 1898, he was back in England, and returned to Kew to 
work for a time at the laboratory again. During this visit he was doing 
the anatomy of L ox soma, and afterwards of other Ferns, for his solenostely 
papers. We had many discussions on questions of stelar morphology and 
the comparative anatomy of Ferns. He stayed at Kew over Christmas, 
leaving on Jan. 3, 1899. 
The following month he started on his second tropical journey, that 
to the Malay Peninsula. It is characteristic of him that the interval 
between these two adventurous expeditions was filled up with regular 
laboratory work. 
From The Times , Spring, 1899: 
‘ Cambridge Expeditions in the Far East . 
‘An expedition, under the leadership of Mr. W. W. Skeat, left Cambridge 
a few days ago for Bangkok. The members of the party include Mr. Gwynne- 
Vaughan, of Christ’s College, and Messrs. Evans & Annandale, of Oxford, 
and it will be reinforced at Singapore by Mr. Bedford, of King’s College. 
