ORCHID HUNTING IN COLUMBIA.

Samoa Weekly Herald, Volume 1, Issue 3, 10 December 1892, Page 2

ORCHID HUNTING IN COLUMBIA.

If orchid-growing has its excitements, much more has orchid-hunting. Theso flowers havo to be sought through ns many adventures, ana in woods as haunted by snakes and savages with poisoned arrows, as over was tho Fleeco of Gold.

They aro found in lands where old men went wnndoring in quest of the City of the Sun, of Eldorado, of the Fountain of Youth.

First a long voyago has to bo undertaken, thon a long railway journey through the state of Columbia, and thon the railroad becomes n track, tho track becomes a trail, forosts have to ponotratod, rivers to be swum, cactus thickets to bo cut through, the Andes to ho Bcnled, andaftor that thoro remains a wook's journoy among hills oyer which tho condor fiies, and through woods whore tho Indian poisons his arrow-heads. Thousands of trees have then to bo cut down for tho sako of tho Cattloya Mondolll that fostoous them, a (lower born in tho nurplo, and much more ningniflcont than Solomon in all his glory-

Next the lnillm have to bo pnokod, and carried by mon or on muloback, or hv bullock, nil tho long way to tho railway, and thorn remain tho danger* of tropical heat, whllo hulbii <lio off llk» ncgrom in tho Middle JWagc. So laborious ia it to bring orchid™ from beneath the volcanic homo of the nnrrml emerald thnt nt Inst they may trail their purple or golden llnwera, from little aquaro baaktU in lomc hothouae of Upper Tooting.—American paper.