On returning to our camp at Amsmiz we found work in abundance ready to hand. Our precious collections from the Aït Mesan valley, including, as they did, the most interesting results of our expedition, had been lying for three days untouched; and it was necessary to go through them all again, putting into separate parcels those that were dry and those still requiring pressure between dry paper. With the exception of half an hour given to another interview with the friendly Kaïd of Amsmiz, we were thus occupied until long after midnight. Although our store of drying-paper was large, the demand often exceeded the supply, and many a friendly contest arose as to respective rights of property in parcels of soiled paper, here priceless, which elsewhere would have seemed of no value. Those who have had experience in this line know that the labour of a botanical collector is not light, and in truth it would be almost intolerable if it were not for its compensating pleasures. It often happened that the solitary candle was in use throughout the entire night, Ball working till two o’clock or later, when Hooker would rise, more or less refreshed, and keep up work till daylight. But in the pursuits of a naturalist there are abundant sources of satisfaction not suspected by the uninitiated. These are not merely derived from the objects themselves, suggesting as they often do interesting trains of thought and speculation; there are further springs of keen enjoyment in the countless impressions with which they are linked by the subtle influence of association. Much of the pleasure that an artist, however unskilled, derives from travel, arises from the power of each sketch to bring back again to the mind the original scene of which it is but the imperfect transcript. If he be active and industrious, he may preserve a dozen such keys to the impressions of each day’s journey. But to the botanist almost every specimen is indissolubly linked in the memory with the spot where it was collected; and as he goes through the produce of his day’s work, every minute detail is vividly presented to the mind, along with the wider background that lay behind the original picture. The wonder and awe that dwell around the mountain fastnesses, the consolation of the forest glade, the indefinable grandeur of the desert plain, nay, even the bleak solitariness of northern moorland and morass—these dominant impressions suggested by the aspects of nature are varied and enriched for the naturalist by the myriad phases of beauty that are disclosed to the eye of the observer. The glory of colour in the gentian and saxifrage and golden _Alyssum_, and the other bright creatures that haunt the mountain tops; the tender grace of the delicate ferns that dwell in the rocky clefts; the teeming life of the warm woodland; the strange beauty of the unaccustomed forms that spring up in the desert solitudes; the purple glow of the heath relieving the sombreness of the leaden sky, and the delicate