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Show ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 315 of palms flower only once a year, in the neighborhood of the Equator in the month of January and February. But how often is it impossible for travellers to be precisely at that season in places where palms are principally found. In many species of palms, the flowers last only so few days that one almost always arrives too late, and finds the fertilization completed and the male blossoms gone. Frequently only three or four species of palms are found in areas of 2000 square German geographical miles (3200 English geographical square miles). How is it possible during the short flowering season to visit the different places where palms abound: the Missions on the Rio Caroni, the Morichales at the mouth of the Orinoco, the valley of Caura and Erevato, the banks of the Atabapo and the Rio Negro, and the side of the Duida Mountain? Add to this the difficulty of reaching the flowers, when, in the dense forests, or on the swampy river banks (as on the Temi and Tuamini), one sees them hanging from stems above 60 feet high, and armed with formidable spines. A traveller, when preparing to leave Europe on an expedition in which natural history is one of his leading objects, flatters himself with the thoughts of shears or curved blades fastened to long poles, with which he imagines he will be able to reach and cut down whatever he desires; he dreams, too, of native boys, who, with a cord fastened to their two feet, are to climb up the highest trees at his bidding. But, alas! very few of these fancies are ever realized; the great height of the blossoms renders the poles useless; and in the missions established on the banks of the rivers of Guiana, the traveller finds himself among Indians whose poverty, stoicism, and uncultivated state render them so rich, and so free from wants of every kind, that neither money nor other presents that can be made to them will induce them to turn three steps out of their path. This insurmountable apathy is the more provoking to a European, because he sees the same people climb with inconceivable agility wherever their own fancies lead them; for example, when they wish to catch a parrot, or an iguana, or a monkey, which having been wounded by their arrows saves himself from falling by holding on to the branches by his prehensive tail. Even at the Havannah we met with a similar disappointment. We were there in the month of January, and saw all the trees of the Palma Real (our |