The Woodlands Orchids, Described and Illustrated. Boyle Frederick
they would prove to be not only curious and interesting but amusing – sometimes terrible. I began to collect, therefore, and in the pages following I offer some of the results.
It is right to begin with a legend of Roezl, if only because his name will often recur; but also he was incomparably the greatest of those able and energetic men who have roamed the savage world in search of new plants for our study and enjoyment. Almost any other mortal who had gone through adventures and experiences such as his in our time would have made a book and a sensation; but the great collector never published anything, I believe, beyond a statement of scientific facts from time to time. This is not the place to deal with his career; I am only telling stories. But it is not to be dismissed without a word.
Roezl will be gratefully remembered so long as science and horticulture survive the triumph of democracy. I have heard it alleged that he discovered eight hundred new species of plant or tree. It is credible. In the memoir published by the Gardeners’ Chronicle, which was brief of necessity, fourscore were enumerated, with the addition, here, of ‘many others,’ there, of ‘etc.’ Roezl was no specialist. A wise regard for his own interest confined him almost to orchids in the later years. But in his catalogue of achievements I find new lilies, new conifers, fuchsias, agaves, cacti, begonias, saxifrage, dahlias, convolvuli, tropaeolums, tacsonias – a multitude, in fact, beyond reckoning. In one expedition he sent eight tons of orchids to Europe; in another ten tons of cacti, agaves, dion, and orchids! The record of his travels is startling; and it must be observed that Roezl’s first aim always was to escape from the beaten track. His journeyings were explorations. Many an Indian tribe never saw a white man before, and some, perhaps, have never seen one since. Mexico was his first hunting-ground, and thither he returned more than once; Cuba the second. Thence he was drawn to the Rocky Mountains, California, and Sierra Nevada. Then in succession he visited Panama, New Granada, Sierra Nevada again, California again, Washington Territory, Panama again, Bonaventura, the Cauca valley, Antioquia, Northern Peru, crossed the Andes, returned to Bonaventura, and thence to Europe. Starting again he searched Colorado Territory, New Mexico, California, the Sierra Madre; worked his way to Caracas, thence through Venezuela, crossed to Cuba, to Vera Cruz, explored the state of Oajaca in Mexico, sailed to Lima, crossed the Andes again to Tarma and Changamaga, back into Southern Peru, wandered as far as the Lake of Titicaca, searched Bolivia, traversed the Snowy Mountains to Yungas, back to Lima and Arica, crossed the Andes a third time, visited Ecuador, and made his way back to the valley of the Cauca. How many thousand miles of journeying this chronicle represents is a problem for laborious youth. And the botanist uses roads, railways, and horses only to get him from one scene of operations to another. He works afoot.
It is good to know that Roezl had his reward. Eighteen years ago he died, full of years and honours, in his native Bohemia. And the Kaiser himself was represented by a high dignitary at the unveiling of his statue in Prague.
The experiences I am about to tell were made in the course of that long march through the woods from La Guayra in Venezuela to Ocaña in New Granada. Among the special trophies of it was Cattleya Roezlii, a variety of Cattleya speciosissima; but I am not aware that the secluded tribe whose habits interested Roezl so much had any immediate connection with this plant. Perhaps before going further it may be well to note that any assertion of the great Collector might be admitted not only as an honest report, but also as a fact which he had verified, so far as was possible. Dr. Johnson was not more careful to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
It was somewhere round the sources of the Amazons that Roezl sojourned for a while in a village of those strange people whom the Spaniards call Pintados – ‘painted’ Indians. Their colour, in fact, is piebald – light brown, dark brown, and a livid tint commonly described as red, in blotches. They are seen occasionally in Guiana, more rarely in Venezuela and Brazil. The colouring is ascribed to disease, rather because it is so hideous and abnormal, perhaps, than for a solid reason. Roezl thought it ‘natural.’
He was making his way through those endless forests by compass, with two mestizos from Columbia who had served him on a former journey, and a negro boy. For guides and carriers he depended on the Indians, who passed him from settlement to settlement. It is fitting to observe here that Roezl never carried firearms of any sort at any time – so he used to say. Of great stature and prodigious muscle, utterly fearless, never unprepared, happen what might, he passed forty years in such wandering as I have outlined, and never had occasion to strike a blow. Several times he found himself between contending factions, the armed mobs of Spanish America, and lost everything; many times was he robbed, but never, I believe, assaulted. Nerve and humour protected him. As for the wild Indians, I fancy that they were overawed by his imposing appearance; and especially by an iron hook which occupied the place of his left hand, smashed by an accident.
This system of travelling at leisure from settlement to settlement enabled him to pick up a few necessary words of each language, and to give warning of his approach to the next tribe. The Pintados welcomed him in a quiet fashion – that is, the chiefs did not object when he repaired an empty hut and took possession. It was at the end of a long ‘street,’ parallel to the river. The rude dwellings were not scattered. Each stood opposite to its fellow across the way, and Roezl noticed a large flat stone in the middle between every pair. Towards nightfall the Indians trooped back from their fields; but all the women and grown girls entered at one end of the village, the men at the other. This was curious. As they marched up, the former dispersed in huts to the right hand, the latter to the left, each sex keeping to its own side of the stones. After depositing their tools the men came out and gathered silently around the strangers’ quarters – only very young children ran to and fro. After a time the women reappeared with steaming calabashes, which they bore half across the road, and set, each of them, on the stone before her dwelling. Then they returned. Forthwith the males strolled back, carried the supper to their respective huts, and in due time replaced the empty calabash upon the stone, whence the women removed it.
It will be understood that these strange ceremonies interested Roezl. Evidently the husbands lived on one side of the street, the wives and young children on the other. The moon was full and he watched for hours. After supper the males returned to squat and smoke around his hut, scarcely speaking; but one after another they withdrew presently, each to his own abode. So long as the moonlight enabled Roezl to observe, not one crossed the way. And afterwards he discovered that this is an eternal rule – a husband never enters his wife’s dwelling. The separation of the sexes is complete.
Long before satisfying himself on this point Roezl saw enough to convince him that the usages of this secluded people must be well worth study. He remained among them as long as he could, and even made memoranda – the first and only time, I believe, that he kept records other than botanical or scientific. It may be hoped that they survive and will come to light, since his papers are now stored in the museum at Prague. I am dependent on the memory of those whom he amused with curt stories of adventure over pipe and glass on his visits to England. They are many, and they preserve the liveliest remembrance of one to whom Johnson’s remarks on the greatest of modern orators are peculiarly applicable. ‘If a man were to go by chance at the same time with Burke under a shed to escape a shower, he would say, “This is an extraordinary man.”’ Unfortunately, it is the most striking observations alone which they recall, with but a vague impression of others.
Every hearer asked, of course, how the race could avoid extinction under such circumstances? But it appears that the separation is only public – an exaggerated prudery, one might describe it, though we may be sure that the sentiment lies infinitely deeper. The sexes work apart, as has been said; after the men have cleared a piece of ground they leave it to the women, and clear another for themselves. But when a youth has a mind to marry, in the first place he builds a hut in the forest. Then he awaits the train of women returning, steps gently among them, and takes the maiden of his fancy by the hand. She throws him off at once if disinclined, and there is an end of it; otherwise she suffers him to lead her a step before freeing herself. Day after day in that case the invitation is repeated, and the maiden takes two steps, then three, until at length she quits the procession entirely and surrenders. There is no ceremony of marriage, but, so far as Roezl could gather, the bond is absolutely sacred; in fact, if we think of it, those conditions of life forbid intrigue. It should be added that the other women and girls studiously ignore these proceedings, and