[[1]]
Silchar Cachar district
Nov 26 / [18]50
Mr dear Father
My letters have not reached me for a long time & I do not expect any till I reach my
next halting place at Chittagong. So if you have addressed me any queries by the
last 2 or 3 mails I hope you will excuse my inability to answer them.
Our last 3 weeks at Churra [Cherrapunji] were very long ones arranging & packing
our collections. We left the hills on the 10th & I had the pleasure of seeing them all
stowed safe away in a large boat hired to send all to Falconer from Pundua. The
dried plants in 70 bales are camphored & put up like bales of cotton in gunny tight &
dry. I could get no boxes. The woods Palm Bamboos &c are similarly put up, but being
very long, some 10 feet, they got a dunking going down the hill on mens' backs -- I
hope none are injured & they had all dried when I followed them. 7 ward's cases are
full of Palms Pines a few oaks & Laurels, Nepenthes &c. The Palms look splendidly - amongst them a new species
[[2]] of Wallichia 20 feet high. There are also boxes with smaller things & bottles, with
fruits & flowers of more than 500 species of plants in spirits These are have all
labelleds tied on the bottles, & the bottles numbered with a diamond the numbers
answering the duplicate catalogue in my possession generally referring to the tickets
in the dried herbarium.
The woods are marked with cuts or brands & of these I have also the catalogue. As
to the Calami & Bamboos -- I ticketed them, wrapping the tickets up in folds of paper,
but I doubt their surviving, & I do not see how they can be made available for the
Museum except by Thomson & myself. The same may be said of the woods Tree ferns
&c, which can only be worked at with the Herbarium, & that will be a work of great
time & trouble. I wish very much that the Gov[ernmen]t. would give me a house at
Kew for the collections & a small salary to engage
[[3]] me working them up for the Museum & Public & leave me to get a publisher who
would illustrate & over whom I should have some hold by having the offer of my
journal. I should greatly prefer this, to having a grant for publication made to me[.] I
shall never write well for profit, & would willingly give all my material dry scientific &
popular to the publisher searching no profit, but excercising[sic] a control over the
amount of illustration to be given to both Nat[ural]. Hist[ory]. & Journal. To make the
latter what it ought to be, to do me credit, will be a work of much time there is so
much to work at in itself & such extensive reading required to bring the amount of
country & inhabitants & productions up to the present state of knowledge. I should
like too to publish cheap, in a small form. & to illustrate copiously with wood cuts to
the latter indeed I would like to elevate what profits might otherwise be the authors.
Colvile writes me word of your having forwarded DC [De Candolle] very many
thanks, &
[[4]] Falconer that the picture of myself & Lepchas is at last returned. This is I
suppose Reeve's fault; & I guess you sent it him ages ago to be returned, & before
you knew that it was a present -- This you have known, now many months, & the
picture you told me was returned, as last March, to Calcutta [Kolkata]. This is too bad
of Reeves.
The latter has sent me some drawings of Rhod[odendron]s & Victoria, all most
splendid to behold, & a very civil letter. He seems to be going on with great spirit &
energy, & certainly is the most go-ahead Nat[ural]. Hist[ory]. publisher of this or any
other day. He seems too to be getting quite a great man & talks of inviting Harvey to
his home as if he were a professor himself. All which sounds very odd to me, who
used to blow him up 3 years ago, till the poor soul hardly knew whether he stood on
his head or heels. However he is a most energetic man & deserves all his success.
He tells me you are at Eastbourne. Although where that is I am profoundly ignorant,
but have a myth--like vision of some gardening
[[5]] Lady of property a friend of yours having a name linked to "Eastbourne".
Reeve says on the sea--side. where I cannot find it on any map. It is all one
however, you have left it long ago, only I should like to be walking there with you.
We came here from Sylhet several days ago, by water, in little boats along the
bottom of which we lay for 4 days only getting out to Botanize. The plain here is a
dead flat, but not a swamp as below Churra, & the Mts rise to the N[orth]. & East. to
4--5000 ft, thickly wooded, but inacessable[sic] in most directions for swamps or
savages, here there is a small military detachment with our Churra friend Col[onel].
Lister & L[ieutenan]t Raban & we are very happy & comfortable. Low hills rise from
the flat two hundred 200 ft or so above the sea only -- yet we have fine oaks Kadsura &
Camellia? Munnipore is the best direction from this & I go to the frontier Mts
tomorrow for some days. Thomson is poorly & cannot come & so I go alone. The
forest commences 1 1/2 marches from this to East[war]d & thence the hills rise to 3-4000 ft. up which I hope to go. Munnipore itself I have given
[[6]] up for Chittagong, for several reasons.
1. The road was blocked up by contending Rajahs till this morning, when a signal
victory has been gained & the worsted man takes refuge with us & is now here -- 2.
Jenkins strongly advises me not to go to Chittagong in preference, as the low hills
about Munnipore are all cultivation & Bamboo jungle & it is far too late for elevations
above 4000 ft -- 3. The Chittagong Flora is unexplored, more wood, en route to
Calcutta [Kolkata] & [Thomas] Thomson goes there at any rate. On my return
therefore from the Munnipore frontier I go straight to Sylhet & hire boats from
Chittagong, hoping to arrive there about 20th Dec[embe]r. NB the frontier rows here
are all settled & never have had any thing to do with our gov[ernmen]t. our Resident
being undisturbed at the Munnipore capital throughout.
At Sylhet we spent a day with the Judge, a Mr Hainforth, whose name I mention as
you may by accident hear of it. About Patchouli I can get no satisfaction -- the only
Pogostemum plant here smelling of that scent is a Geniosporum . A Pogot. very like
that you figure (& I doubt not the same) is common enough in the hilly parts of India
and here & in Sikkim but has no smell
[[7]] but is green. I shall however take every means I can of getting at the bottom of
the Patchouli plant. It certainly is not the plant with which Kashmir shawls are
scented, which is true Kortus described in L[innean]. S[ociety]. Trans[actions]. by
Falconer.
I hope you have ere this received my map of Sikkim -- that of the Khassya, as far as
I know them, I finished this morning a very poor affair it looks. Thuillier will send it
you with a copy after he has copied it for insertion in the general atlas of India. That
finishes my survey work I am glad to say, the work has cost me great time & labour,
but I do not admit that it was so much time taken from Nat[ural]. Hist[ory]. for I have
had plenty of that too, as much as I could well put up with.
I see that Royle has been distributing Falconer's collections *1 & I suppose all of
others that were in the India house up to this last year. I do hope he will not touch
Thomson's which have arrived in England by the "Duke of Wellington" Thomson will
go home by the February steamer. I suppose I must go to Ceylon *2 at least Thwaites
seems to expect it fully. if so I shall probably be
[[8]] off by the March steamer as I want to be a fortnight in Calcutta to work at the
Gardens with Falconer, & get you some of the common Bengal articles for the
Museum & I shall of course be only a month in Ceylon & take the following steamer
for England. At least those are my present notions. The Flora N.Z. [New Zealand] &
V.D.L. [Van Diemen's Land] *3 I shall recommence at one whether the Govt admiralty
will re--advance me to my former pay or not, for to that I am bound, but I cannot
undertake my Indian collections except the W. & F. [Woods & Forests Department]
will continue my patrons.
Tell Mr Bentham that a Capt Cave a son of a neighbour of his at Pontrilas, (a Mr Cave,)
is second in command & Ass[istan]t. Pol[itical]. agent at Churra, he is an exceedingly
nice kind fellow very fond of gardening & married a sister of F. Beauforts wife.
I wrote to Smith by the last mail. The account of the Edn[?]. Brit. Assn. in the
Atheneaum reads very well but Botany as usual is represented by Babington! -What a splendid fellow Paxton must be, his success will kill Lobb who calls
P[axton].a very poor stick, thinks very little of Lindley & talks of giving up taking the
Gard[eners] Chron[icle].! He[?] Lobb is a most thoroughly respectable well
conducted man, but you are woefully mistaken about his modesty. I fear he will not
collect in Malabar except you write to Veitch about it & that is of all others the least
explored & most promising part of India -- a dreadful climate however. but Lobb is
obstinate & will get through I hope.
*4 Best
love to my mother & Bessy. You had better address me to Ceylon I think as I
may leave by the February steamer -- & send only a short note by the Jan[uar]y
Southampton if in time to Falconers care for me. Best love to my mother & Bessy.
your affectionate son
Jos D Hooker [signature]
ENDNOTES
1. Annotation in pencil states '(a mistake)'
2. The country formerly known as Sri Lanka is now called Ceylon.
3. The island formerly known as Van Diemen's Land is now called Tasmania.
4. The text which runs from here until the end of the letter is written up the left margin
of page 1.
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