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348
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
that, leading with us a simple and peaceful life, we
may end our days together.
With this I await your reply, desiring that it
may find you well. Your truest heart-friend sighs
to see and to embrace you.
MANUEL SANTANDER.
Addition. If convenient to you, and you con-
sider that Pachito might be useful to you, and you
will tell me how he may get there, I will give him
to you, Senor Ricardo, that he may serve you as a
companion and assist you in something.
(So endeth the epistle according to Santander. ) '
R. S.
[Nearly two years later, in a letter to Mr. Daniel
H anbury from Welburn (dated December 31, 1868),
we have the conclusion of the long story of the
repeated efforts to get flowers and fruits of the
much-desired Canelo or Cinnamon tree of Quito.
This tree and its spicy bark were known to the
of Peru and Ecuador, and
Spanish conquerors
has been an article of commerce ever since ; the
great forest of Canelos was so named after it ;
many travellers and botanists have traversed this
forest, including the enthusiastic Richard Spruce,
been able to obtain or even to
yet no one had yet
see its flowers or fruit. Some of the causes of this
failure are indicated in a letter from Santander,
dated " Ambato, November 12, 1868." He therein
describes the extraordinary series of accidents and
misfortunes which made all his efforts of no avail ;
and as it also serves to illustrate further the