afterwards, but of his natural history and ethnological (I believe
that is the word) studies he spoke a good deal. As, in my humble way,
I also am an observer of such matters and know something about African
natives and their habits from practical experience, these subjects
interested me.

Amongst other things, he showed me many of the specimens that he had
collected during his recent journey; insects and beautiful butterflies
neatly pinned into boxes, also a quantity of dried flowers pressed
between sheets of blotting paper, amongst them some which he told me
were orchids. Observing that these attracted me, he asked me if I
would like to see the most wonderful orchid in the whole world. Of
course I said yes, whereon he produced out of one of his cases a flat
package about two feet six square. He undid the grass mats in which it
was wrapped, striped, delicately woven mats such as they make in the
neighbourhood of Zanzibar. Within these was the lid of a packing-case.
Then came more mats and some copies of /The Cape Journal/ spread out
flat. Then sheets of blotting paper, and last of all between two
pieces of cardboard, a flower and one leaf of the plant on which it
grew.

Even in its dried state it was a wondrous thing, measuring twenty-four
inches from the tip of one wing or petal to the tip of the other, by
twenty inches from the top of the back sheath to the bottom of the
pouch. The measurement of the back sheath itself I forget, but it must
have been quite a foot across. In colour it was, or had been, bright
golden, but the back sheath was white, barred with lines of black, and
in the exact centre of the pouch was a single black spot shaped like
the head of a great ape. There were the overhanging brows, the deep
recessed eyes, the surly mouth, the massive jaws--everything.