THE attempt to make simultaneous collections of seeds and plants of all the valuable species of chinchonæ was thus crowned with almost complete success. Out of my original scheme the _C. lancifolia_ of New Granada was the only one which had not been procured. It is unnecessary to say more respecting the numerous difficulties and dangers which were encountered by the collectors, for the narrative of the proceedings detailed in previous chapters will have made these sufficiently obvious. So far as the labours in South America were concerned, all obstacles were surmounted, and the objects of this great enterprise were fully attained. Not only were plants and seeds safely brought to the coast, but, in every instance, the collectors took care to provide themselves with botanical specimens from the chinchona-trees. Thus the leaves, flowers, fruit, and bark of each species, which were brought to England, placed the identity of the valuable species to which the plants and seeds belonged beyond the remotest possibility of a doubt.[384] But in conveying these precious mule-loads to the coast of Peru, and safely embarking them, only half the difficulties had been overcome; and I could not but feel that some failures and disappointments must be expected before the chinchona-plants were fairly established in India. There was not much reason for apprehension with regard to the seeds; but the plants, in the absence of any provision for conveying them direct across the Pacific, had to undergo an ordeal of unprecedented duration. Yet the great advantage of introducing plants as well as seeds, in the immense start they would give to the young plantations in India, was strongly felt, and the complete success that attended the hazardous transit of at least one relay, which came under peculiarly favourable circumstances, fully justified the attempt. I gave directions to Mr. Spruce and Mr. Pritchett to send small parcels of seeds of each species to Jamaica and Trinidad, in obedience to an order received from England, so that quinine-yielding trees might also be introduced into our West Indian colonies; and the results of the experiment in those islands will be given in a future chapter. The great bulk of the collections, however, were despatched to India, by the roundabout way of Southampton, directly they arrived on the coast of the Pacific.