Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

322 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
for a time completely prostrated. The fact is, I
have been too constant to botany ; several times in
the course of my travels I might
have taken to some
occupation far more lucrative ; and I have met
many men who, beginning without a made more money in two or
cent,
three years than
have
I in
thirteen, and that without being exposed to thunderstorms
and pelting rain, sitting in a canoe up to the
knees in water, eating of bad and scanty food once
a day, getting no sleep at night from the attacks of
venomous insects, to say nothing of the certainty
of having every now and then to look death in the
face, as I have done.
Excuse these personal details, which I have not
entered into with any hope or desire of exciting sym-
pathy, but simply to explain that, although
midst of objects interesting to the inquirer into the
still in the
productions and processes of nature, I can pay little
heed to them.
[Spruce
then describes how he tried to obtain
specimens of the flowers, etc., of a particular balsam
tree Mr. Hanbury was very anxious to obtain ; but
after paying the owner of the forests ten dollars to
send an Indian to fetch them, he received a mule-load
of branches none of which possessed a single flower
or fruit, to obtain which one or two more journeys
would have to be made at different seasons. He
then proceeds :
When I
]
came out to the Amazon I resolved
never to take a specimen of a gum or resin without
gathering specimens of the tree producing it ; in
which I did very wrong, for I thus lost the oppor-
tunity of securing good specimens of many gums,
etc., brought by the Indians to the towns for sale ;