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.