gold places kept by a friend of mine, who supplied us
with food. Thereafter we started for town. Halfway, at Kapuri falls (one
of the most dangerous), we swamped down over a rock, and so we lost some
of our things; still saved all our plants, though they lay for a few
hours under water with the boat. 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. 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.

The river expenses fearfully high, in fact, unreasonably high, on
account of the gold-digging. Labourers getting 64 c. to $1.00 per day,
and all found. No Indians to be got, and those that you can get at
ridiculous prices, and getting them, too, by working on places where
they build and thatch houses and clear the ground from underbush, and as
huntsmen for gold-diggers. Even if Mr. 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. So that orchid collecting is made a very expensive
affair. Besides its success being very doubtful, even if a man is very
well acquainted with Indian life and has visited the Savannah reaches
year after year. We spent something over $2500 to $2900, including Mr.
Kromer's and Steigfer's passage out, on our last expedition.

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. I can
give you first-class references if you should be willing to send an
expedition, and we could come to some arrangement; at least, you would