That was ‘Boot and Saddle’ for Oversluys. Off he set full gallop, for the risk of a broken neck is not worth counting when vengeful Indians are on one’s trail. But though all the village must have heard him thudding past, no one pursued. Very extraordinary, but the whole incident was mysterious. After fifteen years’ experience the collector—a shrewd man at the beginning—knew Indians well, but he could never explain this adventure. Sometimes he thought it might have been a trick from beginning to end, devised by Don Hilario to get the Cura into a scrape. I have no suggestion to offer, but the little story seems worth note as an illustration of manners.
Oversluys had good reason to remember it. Uncomfortably enough he waited for dawn in the dank wood, holding his mule by the bridle, not daring to advance. As soon as the path could be faintly traced he started, and happily found the corral where his mules and servants had been left. The cattle were streaming out already, bulls in advance. They blocked the gateway, and with the utmost promptitude Oversluys withdrew into the bush. Making his way to the fence he shouted for his mozos—in vain; climbed over with no small difficulty and entered the shed. His mules were safe enough but both mozos had vanished, having found or made friends in the neighbourhood. And all his precious Cattleyas, left defenceless, had been munched or trampled flat by the cattle! He never ceased to mourn that loss.
A STORY OF CATTLEYA MOSSIAE
Since orchids never die, unless by accident, and never cease to grow, there is no limit to the bulk they may attain. Mishap alone cuts their lives short—commonly the fall or the burning of the tree to which they cling. Mr. Burbidge secured one, a Grammatophyllum, ‘as big as a Pickford’s van,’ which a corvée of Dyaks could not lift. Some old collections even in Europe show prodigious monsters; in especial, I am told, that of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick. Mr. Astor has two Peristeria elata at Cliveden of which the bulbs are as large as an ostrich egg, and the flower stems rise to a height of nine feet! The most striking instance of the sort I myself have observed, if not quite the biggest, was a Cattleya Mossiae sent home by Mr. Arnold. It enclosed two great branches of a tree, rising from the fork below which it was sawn off—a bristling mass four feet thick and five feet high; two feet more must be added if we reckon the leaves. As for the number of flower-scapes it bore last season, to count them would have been the work of hours; roughly I estimated a thousand, bearing not less than three blooms, each six inches across. Fancy cannot rise to the conception of that gorgeous display. I doubt not that the forest would be scented for a hundred yards round.
Such giant Cattleyas are very rare in the ‘wild state.’ An orchid, though immortal, is subject to so many accidents that only species of very quick growth attain great age; these are less exposed to the perils of youth, naturally. From time to time, however, an Indian removes some plant which strikes him for its beauty or its size, and starts it afresh on a tree not too tall—and therefore young—in view of his hut. Thus it takes a new lease of life and grows indefinitely. I have not heard that ‘white’ peons are so aesthetic.
This Cattleya Mossiae had been rescued by an Indian. Mr. Arnold first saw it on his memorable search for Masdevallia Tovarensis. I must tell that episode to begin with.
More than thirty years ago a German resident at Tovar sent a white Masdevallia to a friend in England. There were very few species of the genus, few plants indeed, under cultivation at that time, and all scarlet. The novelty made a vast sensation. For a good many years the owner kept dividing his single specimen, and putting fragments on the market, where they fetched a very long price. Under such circumstances a man is not inclined to tell where his treasure comes from. At an earlier date this gentleman had published the secret so far as the name ‘Tovar’ went. But there are several places so called in Spanish America, and importers hesitated. At length Mr. Sander made up his mind. He sent Mr. Arnold to Tovar in New Grenada.
Masdevallias are reckoned among the most difficult of orchids to import. From their home in cool uplands they must be transported through some of the hottest regions on the globe, and they have no pseudo-bulbs to sustain them; a leaf and a root, one may say, compose each tiny plant.