Not
appalled by these sufferings, he has returned again to endure similar
hardships, and all for a few simples. The third example is Mr. Drummond,
the assistant botanist to Franklin in his last hyperborean journey. In the
midst of snow, with the thermometer 15 deg. below zero, without a tent,
sheltered from the inclemency of the weather only by a hut built of the
branches of trees, and depending for subsistence from day to day on a
solitary Indian hunter, "I obtained," says this amiable and enthusiastic
botanist, "a few mosses; and, on Christmas day,"--mark, gentle reader, the
day, of all others, as if it were a reward for his devotion,--"I had the
pleasure of finding a very minute Gymnostomum, hitherto undescribed. I
remained alone for the rest of the winter, except when my man occasionally
visited me with meat; and I found the time hang very heavy, as I had no
books, and nothing could be done in the way of collecting specimens of
natural history."
_Magazine of Natural History_
* * * * *
[Illustration: BURIAL PLACE IN TONGATABU.]
This is another of Mr. Bennett's sketches made during his recent visit to
several of the Polynesian Islands.
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