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Kromer had succeeded to get 3000 or 4000 fine Cattleya Lawrenceana, it would have been of no value to us, as we could not have got anybody to carry them to the river where a boat could reach. Besides this, I also must tell you that there is a license to be paid out here if you want to collect orchids, amounting to $100, which Mr. Kromer had to pay, and also an export tax duty of 2 cents per piece.

Still, we got away with what we had of our loads until we reached the first gold places kept by a friend of mine, who supplied us with food. Thereafter we started for town. After this we reached town in safety. So after coming home we found, on packing up, that we had only about 900 plants, that is, Cattleya Lawrenceana, of which about one-third good, one-third medium, and one-third poor quality.

While I was going up to Roraima, he stayed in the Savannah, still too sick to go further. At Roraima I collected everything except Catt. Lawrenceana, which was utterly rooted out already by former collectors.

And if you should be inclined to go in for an expedition, just send me a list of what you require, and I will tell you whether the plants are found along the route of travel and in the Savannah visited; as, for instance, Catt. superba does not grow at all in the district where Catt. Lawrenceana is to be found, but far further south.

He will be apt to cry, "Would that the difficulties and perils were infinitely graver so grave that the collecting grounds might have a rest for twenty years!" January 19th, 1893. I have received your two letters asking for Cattleya Lawrenceana, Pancratium Guianense, and Catasetum pileatum. Kindly excuse my answering your letters only to-day.

This trip took us about three and a half months, and cost over 2500 dollars. Besides, I having poisoned my leg on a rotten stump which I run up in my foot, lay for four months suffering terrible pain. You will, of course, see from this that orchid-hunting is no pleasure, as you of course know, but what I want to point out to you is that Cattleya Lawrenceana is very rare in the interior now.

If you want to get any Lawrenceana, you will have to send yourself, and as I said before, the results will be very doubtful. As far as I myself am concerned, I am interested besides my baking business, in the gold-diggings, and shall go up to the Savannah in a few months.

But at the Temple Show this year Norman C. Cookson, Esq., exhibited Catt. William Murray, offspring of Catt. Mendellii × Catt. Lawrenceana, a lovely flower which gained a first class certificate. It was only four years old. The quickest record as yet is Calanthe Alexanderii, with which Mr. Cookson won a first-class certificate of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Lawrenceana, and got only about 1500 or so, it growing only here and there. At Roraima we did not hunt at all, as the district is utterly rubbed out by the Indians. We were about fourteen days at Roraima and got plenty of Utricularia Campbelliana, U. Humboldtii, and U. montana. Also Zygopetalum, Cyp. Also plenty others, as Sobralia, Liliastrum, etc.