ravi animam meam._

It is always difficult to realise that an orchid of the grand class is a
weed. All our conventional notions of a flower revolt against the
proposition. I have remarked that it seems specially absurd to an
ingenuous friend, if one recall the fact while he contemplates Laelia
purpurata. That majestic thing, so perfect in colour and shape, so
delicately finished--a weed! So it is, nevertheless, as lightly regarded
by Nature or by man in its native home as groundsel is by us. The Indians
of Central America love their forest flowers passionately. So do those in
the north of the Southern Continent. But I never heard that the Indians of
Brazil showed a sign of such intelligence. The most glorious Cattleyas to
them are what a primrose was to Peter Bell.

The obvious, unquestionable truth that Laelia purpurata is nothing but a
weed has suggested some unorthodox thoughts, as I considered it,
'pottering about' my houses. This is not the place to set them down at
length. But we have reached a less important part of the collection; I may
chatter for a moment.

All things are grandest in the hot zone, from mountains to plagues.
Excepting the Mississippi and the Yang-tse-Kiang, all the mightiest rivers
even are there. We have no elephants, nor lions, nor anacondas; no tapong
trees three hundred feet high, nor ceibas almost as tall; no butterflies
ten inches across, no storms that lay a province waste and kill fifty
thousand mortals. Further, all things that are most beautiful dwell within
the Tropics--tigers, giraffes, palm-trees, fish, snakes, insects, flowers.
Further still, the most intelligent of beasts are there--apes and monkeys.

It may well be doubted whether man, the animal, is an exception. In this
very country of Brazil, Wallace found among the Indians 'a development of
the chest such as never exists, I believe, in the best-formed European.'
No race of the Temperate Zone approaches the Kroomen in muscular force,
and negroes generally are superior. The strength of the Borneo Dyaks I
myself have noted with amazement. Black Papuans are giants, and the brown
variety excel any white race in vigour. The exception is that most
interesting Negrito strain, represented by a few thousands here and there
from Ceylon to the Philippines. But even they, so small and wretched, have
marvellous strength.

Thus all natural things rise to their highest level in the hot zones--I
have to put the case very roughly, for thi