About Orchids, page 119 by Frederick Boyle
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ow. They are suspended on the walls. Men pass incessantly along the gangways, carrying a load that would fill a barrow. And all the while fresh stores are accumulating under the hands of that little group in the middle, bent and busy at cases just arrived. They belong to a lot of eighty that came in from Burmah last night--and while we look on, a boy brings a telegram announcing fifty more from Mexico, that will reach Waterloo at 2.30 p.m. Great is the wrath and great the anxiety at this news, for some one has blundered; the warning should have been despatched three hours before. Orchids must not arrive at unknown stations unless there be somebody of discretion and experience to meet them, and the next train does not leave St. Albans until 2.44 p.m. Dreadful is the sense of responsibility, alarming the suggestions of disaster, that arise from this incident.
The Burmese cases in hand just now are filled with Dendrobiums, crassinode and Wardianum, stowed in layers as close as possible, with _D. Falconerii_ for packing material. A royal way of doing things indeed to substitute an orchid of value for shavings or moss, but mighty convenient and profitable. For that packing will be sent to the auction-rooms presently, and will be sold for no small proportion of the sum which its more delicate charge attains. We remark that the experienced persons who remove these precious sticks, layer by layer, perform their office gingerly. There is not much danger or unpleasantness in unpacking Dendrobes, compared with other genera, but ship-rats spring out occasionally and give an ugly bite; scorpions and centipedes have been known to harbour in the close roots of _D. Falconerii_; stinging ants are by no means improbable, nor huge spiders; while cockroaches of giant size, which should be killed, may be looked for with certainty. But men learn a habit of caution by experience of cargoes much more perilous. In those masses of _Arundina bambusæfolia_ beneath the table yonder doubtless there are centipede