save the expenses of the passage of one of your collectors. I may say
that I am quite conversant with the way of packing orchids and handling
them as well for travel as shipment.

Kindly excuse, therefore, my lengthy letter and its bad writing. 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.

Before closing, I beg you to let me know the prices of about twenty-five
of the best of and prettiest South American orchids, which I want for my
own collection, as _Catt. Medellii_, _Catt. Trianae_, _Odontoglossum
crispum_, _Miltonia vexillaria_, _Catt. labiata_, &c.

I shall await your answer as soon as possible, and send you a list by
last mail of what is to be got in this colony.

We also found on our last visit something new--a very large bulbed
Oncidium, or may be Catasetum, on the top of Roraima, where we spent a
night, but got only two specimens, one of which got lost, and the other
one I left in the hands of Mr. Rodway, but so we tried our best. It
decayed, having been too seriously damaged to revive and flower, and so
enable us to see what it was, it not being in flower when found.

Awaiting your kind reply,
Yours truly,
SEYLER.

P.S.--If you should send out one of your collectors, or require any
information, I shall be glad to give it.

One of the most experienced collectors, M. Oversluys, writes from the
Rio de Yanayacca, January, 1893:--

"Here it is absolutely necessary that one goes himself into the woods
ahead of the peons, who are quite cowards to enter the woods; and not
altogether without reason, for the larger part of them get sick here,
and it is very hard to enter--nearly impenetrable and full of insects,
which make fresh-coming people to get cracked and mad. I have from the
wrist down not a place to put in a shilling piece which is not a wound,
through the very small red spider and other insects. Also my people are
the same. Of the five men I took out, two have got fever already, and
one ran back. To-morrow I expect other peons, but not a single one from
Mengobamba. It is a trouble to get men