Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London - University Library

^6 PROCEEDIIS'GS OF THE
Upper and Lower Styria, to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh,
accompanied by a parcel of the plants mentioned. These papers
were printed in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,'
vols, xvii, & xviii, for 1846. In the course of his rambles, he
says :— " At an inn at the foot of the mountain [the Lantsch] the
people spoke a jargon that I had great difficulty in understanding,
and they had as much, I suppose, in comprehending me. The
innkeeper told me, begging my pardon, that I did not speak Grerman
very well, and should stay a month or two with him in the Breiteuau
to learn the language. I asked him if he did not think I had better
opportunities in Gratz. ' Oh no,' he said, ' they talk there according
to booiv—Nach der Schrift.' " On the same page is a description
of Vest, " the most untidy botanist ever known," and an account
which Dr. Maly gave of his herbarium.
The next year was devoted to botanising in Dalmatia, and its
southern vegetation. Passing through France, he paid a flying
visit to England in 1844, and in the autumn of the same year went
to Italy. He spent the winter in Naples and visited Sicily the following
spring, collecting largely and getting personally acquainted
with Grussone and oth(;r botanists. He remarks that he was "very
much struck during his excursions in the south with the circumstance
that neither in the Kingdom of Naples, nor in Sicily, is
there anything like the scattered hamlets and cottages that we find
everywhere in England and Grermany—a result of the comparative
insecurity of life and property, and a cause of the preference of
southern people for the pleasure of a town life. Hence the little
attention paid to natural history by them, both in ancient times
and modern."
In April 1846 he sailed for the Cape, and lived thirteen months
in Capetown ; in 1847 going to Georgetown and TJitenhage. He
was at the former place during the heavy rains of that spring, the
heaviest for 22 years, causing inundations : " after which I went
a journey over the Carroo in an ox-waggon, the effect of which I
felt for several years in the singular habit of connecting all noises
that I heard in my sleep with the cries of the wild animals of that
desert. This seems the more strange, as I am not conscious that
I ever dreamed of being aboard ship, although the circumstances
of a sea-voyage are more striking to a landsman than are those
attending a land-journey." He made large collections of plants,
and came home in 1848.
The love of travel prompted him the next year to sail in April
for the United States, where he botanised till November ; then
proceeded to Jamaica, and stayed till August. While in Jamaica
he resided at Moneague, in the mountains of St. Ann's, and
ascended the Blue Mountain Peak. He returned by way of New
"York and Canada in the autumn of 1850, and reached England in
November. He then took a house at Hammersmith, which
remained his home for eight years, though he made occasional
continental trips, visiting Germany, France, Denmark, Norway,
and Italy.