The Botanist

(The following had been transcribed from French. Inconsistencies may occur, and some translations may be invalid.)

August 1, 1901

The lands here are strange, bustling with life and color, and yet everything is poison or wants to kill you. I’ve just arrived, clambering out of a sailboat traveling on the Amazon River. I felt sick, so my first impressions were blurry. I hadn’t been on a sailboat before then. Once I recovered I took a look around. My guide said there was a camp with food and water up a tree-covered mountain, so I set my sights on going there for my first night before starting to document my botanical findings. 

This is where I’m writing my first entry right now. I lay curled on a mat, facing the roof of my tent. I had a filling meal of dried meat and refilled my canteen. I lit a lantern too and decided to go ahead and document a flower I stumbled across on the way here. I remember it so clearly in my mind: White and spiked like a crown. Helicona, one of the most common flowers in these parts, unfortunately. It’s one out of thirty flowers to document though, so I’m making some headway. 

August 4, 1901

I spent two days trekking through the rainforest, seeing many beautiful plants. I must document fifty different ones for a Botanical Collage Assignment in a month, that is why I’m here. I took a short water break under a tree, which is where I’m writing this now. Here are two new findings:

Passion Flower, Genus: Passiflora, known for its vibrant purple hue.

Bromeliads: A plant that comes from green to purple, from red to blue. They prefer partial shade.

Please note that this is my personal diary, and the descriptions are more extensive in my botany book. Signing off for now. 

August 5, 1901

Found four more plants today. I had a bit of trouble finding a place to sleep last night so I had to hide out in a cave during a heavy downpour. They call it a rainforest for a reason! It was good luck, because in the cave I found five new moss types. The reason why I didn’t document it was because it was technically yesterday when I found them. To save time I've decided to only write plant information in my botany book. 

August 10, 1901

Wet season. Most plants can’t withstand all the rain, so I have to find a more resilient species. Going up to the mountain, there are sure to be better ones there. Signing off for now.

August 11, 1901

I have been quite unprofessional, and I apologize for that. My diary entry was quite short yesterday because I had just received word that my sister had died in a warehouse fire from a traveling botanist much like myself. I wasted a day ambling around when I much should've been documenting flowers. How foolish. I have found five new plants, so that is good. I will mourn Eliza when I return to the city. 

I found Camp 2. I counted up my flowers, I have eighteen thus far. Camp two was humid, being on a mountain, though chilly. I ate a meal of granola and dried fruit, though my stores are low and I may have to turn to killing the creatures, which I wouldn’t like to do much. 

August 12, 1901

I spent a lot of my time absentmindedly thinking of Eliza. The reality of it all hadn’t hit yesterday. She’s gone forever, in some place far away, unreachable except by time. I kept on thinking about going home, and the first person I would see at the train station would be her. She wouldn’t be there, though. She’d be lying down in a wooden box, trapped in an everlasting sleep, half mangled by the fire. 

I found a flower today. It was bright red and orange, shaped like an everlasting flame. 

I must specify that all of the technical information on this flower is noted in my botany book.

August 15, 1901

There was a landslide. I despise landslides. It just so happens that this landslide completely swallowed up Camp 3, burying the tents, the supplies, the water, and everything under thousands of years worth of sediment. It also covered my flowers. So many flowers I could’ve documented. This is quite a hiccup in my journey. Therefore I will be writing less frequently.

August 20, 1901

I have eleven days to document thirty-one flowers. If I find three a day, I’ll finish in time for the deadline. So I have indeed written three in the botany book today. I’m traveling up the mountain, not finding much due to the landslide, so I think I’ll go back down in a day. I bet I’ll be able to muster at least three more flowers out of this blasted mountain. I spent five days wasting time looking around the landslide for salvageable supplies, but no longer. That was a rash decision and I could’ve been finding flowers. I heard Fleur took a ferry home early because they have all their flowers. I could’ve been home early along with them.

I found a rocky formation to sleep under tonight. It rained very heavily, and I had to skip dinner, further reminding me of my meager food supplies. I must start rationing if I want to survive. I have heard of many cases of people getting lost and the wild and going hungry. This scares me.

August 23, 1901

I found three new plants, though I don’t have much time to write anymore.

(The diary entries stop here. The diary was found about five years later in an abandoned camp by explorer Jandice Price. Sources show that the student might’ve been killed by extreme storms, lack of food and shelter, or unfamiliar diseases. Maybe the botanist gave up, being torn by grief, and decided to go home. If you have any further evidence, submit it to Price Historical Museum.)