The Woodlands Orchids, Described and Illustrated. Boyle Frederick
young Indian would not accept promises. So the matter fell through.
Three years afterwards Arnold was commissioned to seek Cattleya Mossiae again. Not forgetting the giant, he thought it worth while to take a ‘real English gun’ with him, though doubtless the maiden was a wife long since, and her husband might ask for a more useful present. In due course he reached the spot – a small Indian village in the mountains, some fifteen miles from Caracas. The Cattleya was still there, perched aloft, as big as a hogshead. Arnold’s first glance was given to it; then he looked at the owner’s hospitable dwelling. It also was still there, but changed. Tidy it had never been, but now it was ruinous. None of the village huts could be seen, standing as they did each in its ‘compound’ – a bower of palm and plantains, fruit-trees, above all, flowers. Afterwards he perceived that they had all been lately rebuilt.
The old Indian survived, but it was not from him that Arnold learned the story. The Cura told it. There had been a pronunciamiento somewhere in the country, and the Government sent small bodies of troops – pressgangs, in fact – to enlist ‘volunteers.’ One of these came to the village. The officer in command, a good-looking young man, took up his abode in the Indian’s house and presently made it his headquarters, whence to direct the man-hunts. Upon that pretext he stayed several weeks, to the delight of the villagers, who were spared.
But one evening there was an outbreak. The lover rushed along the street, dripping with blood – the officer, his sword drawn, pursuing. He ran into his hut and snatched a gun from the wall. But it was too late; the other cut him down. The day’s field work was over – all the Indians had returned. They seized their machetes, yelling vengeance, and attacked the officer. But his soldiers also were close by. They ran up, firing as they ran. Some villagers were killed, more wounded; the place was sacked. Next morning early the detachment moved off. When the fugitives returning counted their loss, the pretty daughter of old José was missing. The dead lay where they fell, and she was not among them.
The Cura, an amiable veteran, did not doubt that she had been carried off by force; was not this girl the most devout and dutiful in the parish? He saddled his mule forthwith and rode into Caracas. The officer had delivered his report, which may be easily imagined. Governments in Spanish America at this day resent any kind of interference from the clergy. Had a layman complained, doubtless there would have been an inquiry; in Venezuela, as elsewhere, maidens are not to be carried off by young aristocrats and no word said. But the authorities simply called on the accused for an explanation, accepted his statement that the girl followed him of her free-will, and recommended him to marry her. This he did, as Arnold ascertained. As for the rest —quien sabe?
These sad events account for the old Indian’s behaviour. Arnold found him at home, and with him a young man not to be recognised at first, who proved to be the lover. The muscles of his neck had been severed, causing him to hold his head awry, and a slash had partially disabled his right arm. Arnold was told abruptly that he could not lodge there, and he withdrew. But on a sudden the lover whispered eagerly. They called him back.
‘Will you buy the Cattleya?’ asked old José.
‘How much?’
‘Fifty dollars and a good gun.’
‘It’s a bargain.’
He paid there and then, nor quitted the spot, though very hungry, until his followers had sawn through the branch and lowered its burden to the ground. Carrying his spoil in triumph, suspended on a pole, Arnold sought the Cura’s house. There he heard the tale I have unfolded.
Not until evening did the Padre chance to see the giant Cattleya. He was vexed, naturally, since his church lost its accustomed due. But when Arnold told what he had paid for it, the good man was deeply moved. ‘Holy Virgin and all saints!’ he cried, ‘there will be murder!’ And he set off running to the Indian’s house. It was empty. José and the lover had been seen on the road to Caracas hours before – with the gun.
I am sorry that I cannot finish the story; too often we miss the dénoûment in romances of actual life. But the Cura felt no doubt. It may be to-night, or next year, or ten years hence, he said, but the captain is doomed. Our Indians never forget nor forgive, nor fail when at length they strike.
The murder was not announced whilst Arnold remained in the country. But all whom he questioned gave the same forecast. Unless the Indians were seized or died they would surely have vengeance.
CYPRIPEDIUM INSIGNE
Here is a house full of Cypripedium insigne; nothing else therein save a row of big Cymbidiums in vases down the middle, Odontoglossum citrosmum and Cattleya citrina hanging on wires overhead. Every one knows this commonest of Cypripeds, though many may be unacquainted with the name. Once I looked into a show of window-gardening in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, and among the poor plants there, treasures of the poorest, I found a Cypripedium insigne – very healthy and well-grown too. But when I called the judges’ attention, they politely refused to believe me, though none of them could say what the mysterious vegetable was – not the least curious detail of the incident. The flower cannot be called beautiful, but undeniably it is quaint, and the honest unsophisticated public loves it. Moreover the bloom appears in November, lasting till Christmas, if kept quite cool. The species was introduced from Sylhet so long ago as 1820, but it flourishes in many districts on the southern slope of the Himalayas. New habitats are constantly discovered.
There are 505 plants in this house, and if individual flowers be not striking commonly – that is, flowers of the normal type – the spectacle is as pretty as curious when hundreds are open at once, apple-green, speckled with brown and tipped with white. But to my taste, as a ‘grower,’ the sight is pleasant at all seasons, for the green and glossy leaves encircle each pot so closely that they form a bank of foliage without a gap all round. But besides this house we have one much larger elsewhere, containing no less than 2500 examples of the same species. If no two flowers of an orchid on the same plant be absolutely similar, as experts declare – and I have often proved the rule – one may fancy the sum of variation among three thousand. Individually, however, it is so minute in the bulk of Cypripedium insigne that a careless observer sees no difference among a hundred blooms. I note some of the prominent exceptions.
Clarissimum.– Large, all white, except a greenish tinge at base of the dorsal, and the broad yellow shield of the column.
Laura Kimball, on the other hand, is all ochreous yellow, save the handsome white crown of the dorsal and a narrow white margin descending from it.
Statterianum is much like this, but spotted in the usual way.
Bohnhoffianum has a dorsal of curious shape. The crest rises sharply between square shoulders which fold over, displaying the reverse. It has no spots, but at the base is a chestnut blotch, changing to vivid green, which again vanishes abruptly, leaving a broad white margin. Vivid green also are the petals, with brown lines; the slipper paler. This example is unique.
Macfarlanei is all yellowish green, with a white crest.
Amesiae.– The dorsal has a broad white outline and a drooping crest. To white succeeds a brilliant green, and to that, in the middle, bright chestnut. Chestnut lines also, and dots, mount upward. The green petals are similarly lined, and the slipper is greenish, tinged with chestnut.
Longisepalum is flesh-colour, with a greenish tinge and pink spots on the very long dorsal. The pink spots change to lines upon the petals. Slipper ruddy green.
Dimmockianum.– The broad and handsome dorsal is green, with white margin. A red stain at the base is continued in lines of spots upwards. The petals are scored with the same colour.
Measuresiae.– Big, with a grand dorsal, pale grass-green below, broadly whitening as it swells. Petals the same green, with a dark midrib and fainter lines. Slipper yellow.
Rona is an example of the common type in its utmost perfection – large, symmetrical, its green tinge the liveliest possible, its white both snowy and broad, and its spots so vigorously imprinted that they rise above the surface like splashes of solid chocolate.
Majesticum is another of the same class, but distinguished