seeds of the best species. Markham has told the full story of his mission in his work on "Peruvian Bark," and has incidentally in that narrative exposed the parsimony of the authorities in their treatment of those associated in the important and profitable enterprise successfully carried through after some years of hard and often perilous labour. His principal coadjutor, Dr. Spruce, whose health was utterly ruined by his efforts, was paid a salary of £30 a month while the work lasted, and a special grant of £27 for an exhaustive report which he prepared. A pension of £50 a year was given him by the British Government for his botanical services, and after thirteen years of persistent importunity, the Indian Government granted him another £50 a year. Mr. Pritchett, who collected plants and seeds in the forests of Huanuco, was paid his salary and nothing more. To Mr. Cross, who assisted Dr. Spruce in the collection of the red bark, two grants of £300 each were made. Mr. Weir, "a most conscientious, active, and skilful worker, and, so far as his own labours were concerned, completely successful," crippled and disabled for life, got nothing from the Government, though the Horticultural Society collected some funds which yielded £27 a year.
The monumental instance of official ingratitude was, however, manifested in the case of Charles Ledger, to whom, more than to any other man, the world is indebted for cheap quinine, and out of whose adventurous services the Dutch nation have made millions in their Java dependency. Between the years 1841 and 1858 Ledger was travelling in South America in the employment of the New South Wales Government buying alpacas. He had a faithful servant, Manuel Manami, who had often told him how jealously the natives,
