ined a
special trophy of the Royal Gardens for many years. It throve and
multiplied. In course of time Sir Joseph Hooker was able to give a small
piece, in exchange for other varieties, to Mr. Day, of Tottenham, to Baron
Schroeder, and to Messrs. Veitch. The latter sold their specimen to Baron
Schroeder; Mr. Day's collection was dispersed, and the same greatest of
amateurs bought his fragment. Thus all three plants known to exist in
private hands came into Baron Schroeder's possession, and the variety took
his name.

This state of things lasted ten years. Mr. Sander then resolved to wait no
longer upon chance. He studied the route of Forbes's travels, consulted
the authorities at Kew, and, with their aid, came to a conclusion. In 1890
my friend Mr. Micholitz went out to seek Dendrobium Schroederianum in its
native wilds.

The man of sense who finds a treasure does not proclaim the spot till he
has filled his pockets, nor even, if it may be, till he has cleared out
the hoard. It is universally understood that Micholitz discovered the
object of his quest in New Guinea. If that error encouraged the
exploration of a most interesting island, as I hear, it has done a public
service. And the explorers have not wasted their time. They did not fall
in with Dendrobium Schroederianum, because it was not there; but they
secured other valuable things. Very shortly now the true habitat will be
declared. Meantime I must only say that it is one of the wildest of those
many 'Summer Isles of Eden' which stud the Australasian Sea.

Micholitz arrived in a trading-vessel, the captain of which was trusted by
the natives. Under that protection the chiefs allowed him to explore,
agreeing to furnish men and canoes--for a consideration, naturally. Their
power did not stretch beyond a few miles of coast; the neighbours on each
side were unfriendly, or at least distrusted; and bitterly hostile tribes
lay beyond--hostile, that is, to the people among whom Micholitz landed.
All alike are head-hunters, and all charge one another with
cannibalism--but falsely in every case, I understand.

The field was narrow, therefore, and uncommonly perilous, for the
best-intentioned of these islanders cannot always resist the impulse to
crown their trophies with a white man's head--as the Captain assured
Micholitz day by day with an earnestness which became oppressive after a
while. But he was very lucky--or rather the probabilities had been studied
so thought