Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

344 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
of them are so interesting, and have such a close
relation to his work in South America, that I give
here some extracts from them, adding
a few ex-
planatory words where necessary.
The first is from one written about six months
after his return home, and is characteristic of his
intense love of nature.]
KEW, Dec. 20, 1864.
I am thankful we are so near the shortest day.
It is an awful sight to me to see that the sun at
noon barely rises as high as the weathercock on
Kew Church steeple (seen from the opposite side
of the green) and the poor skeletons of trees !
I have not seen trees without leaves for more than
fifteen years.
[This was specially interesting to myself because,
on my return from the Amazon in October 1852,
I was at once struck by two things the general
smallness of the trees, and even more by the low
sun at noon, and especially by the fact of its giving
hardly any heat, so that it seemed most surprising
how any vegetation could continue to grow and
thrive under such harsh conditions.
Although Spruce had made Ambato his head-
quarters for nearly three years,
of his letters any reference to what accommodation he
had there or to the people he lived with, except the
one remark (in a letter to his friend Teasdale) that
I have found in none
his landlord there was "one of the best men in
the place." But as he was often away collecting
at Banos, Quito, Riobamba, and other places, as
well as in the forests around Tunguragua and the