Clas Alströmer has, since he last wrote [Alströmer to Linnaeus, 12 August 1760{L2774}], visited Cadiz twice in order to see Fredrik Logie, who is on his way home, and a botanist, who is travelling to America. Alströmer has now proceeded up the Guadalquivir River to Seville, through a flat clayey landscape that might be of utility were its inhabitants not barbarians. Nothing but salicornia and salsolae grow in it; the people burn Chenopodia to produce soda, called barilla in Spanish. Seville is large, populous and set among olive, orange and lemon groves, and vineyards; Alströmer has seen a three-year-old Musa in a garden. It is full of Gothic, Roman, Moorish and Holy remains, and of people who, like the other Spaniards, are stupid and brutish; Alströmer avers merchants, priests and noblemen have asked him whether Sweden is a city or has a harbour or a king, and similarly ignorant things. They are ignorant of their own country and Alströmer avers that on leaving a town, he knows it better than its inhabitants. With the ship Hindrik and Captain Weyli from Cadiz, Alströmer has sent to Linnaeus an Amaryllis Belladonna, which should be communicated to Linnaeus through Kryger [Samuel Gottlieb Krüger] in Helsingør. Furthermore, with the same ship that brings Logie home, together with the crew of the ship Fama, the name of the ship is Wrede, with Tollberg as the captain, Alströmer has sent from Cadiz the following items:
Cynomorium coccineum in a box of sand that would have also contained an Anabasis tamariscifolia but for the clumsiness of a monk.
A grey-paper package of plants found between Cadiz and Gibraltar and numbered to facilitate Linnaeus informing him of their correct names; he knows many but, on account of travel, over-inquisitive people and the heat, he has not examined all of them. He asks Linnaeus also to tell Jonas Theodor Fagraeus these names that he will affix to the specimens the writer has sent him. Lastly, another small grey-paper package of seeds, of which the writer asks Linnaeus to save some for him.
Some things in the box sent to Fagraeus are for him to discuss with Linnaeus. Alströmer will try to send more of his collections. Until the rains when greenery returns, conditions are inauspicious for a naturalist. Alströmer has tried to preserve for despatch home specimens of Fulica atra and Charadius Alexandrinus, which species abound on the river, by stuffing them with Fructus capsici. He and Logie think it better to be in Sweden that in the confines of Gibraltar.
A botanist he met on a visit to Cadiz, José Celestino Mútis, will travel to Santa Fé in America as doctor to the viceroy designate, Pedro Messía Corea de la Cerda. The former all but worships Linnaeus and owns copies of Genera plantarum [...] editio quinta [unclear which edition, here the fifth edition], Species plantarum and Fundamenta botanica and has used but does not own a copy of Philosophia botanica; Alströmer has persuaded Logie to give him his own copies of that book, Iter Hispanicum, eller resa til spanska länderna uti Europa och America and both volumes of the new edition of Systema naturae, 10th edition [the 10th edition was published in two volumes, “Animalia” 1758 and “Vegetabilia” 1759. The third volume, “Mineralia” was never published]. The writer urges Linnaeus to communicate with Mútis in America, he may write c/o Jacob Martin Bellman in Cadiz. Louis Godin in Cadiz, who sailed from Lisbon with Pehr Löfling, has received him generously and, while appreciating the honour of election to the Uppsala scientific society, has let it be understood election to that in Stockholm would please him even more. Were he so elected, the advantage to Linnaeus would be palpable, if mainly in matters other than natural history.
José Carbonell, Godin’s colleague in the Cadiz academy, awaits not only the books Alsrömer asked Linnaeus to send him but any request Linnaeus wishes to make of him. He has promised to collect specimens of Flores arboris draconis and has fine collections of shells and corals. Alströmer concludes by greeting Linnaeus’s wife [Sara Elisabet Linnaea], and young Carl [Carl Linnaeus the Younger].