[[1]]
Lachoong
August 24/1849
My dear Father
Yesterday I had the great pleasure of receiving your long & kind letter of June 8.
together with its supplement of the 25th. -- I am truly sorry that the Ceylon *1 Govt.
do not take Gardner's Herb[arium]. & Library though I believe in other points of
view it is all the better for Thwaites, who must work for himself. I think Tom
Thomas would become a large purchaser from the sale & I would advise indeed
that the sale be deferred till Tom's return. Much of it must contain novelties to your
Herbarium too for he latterly collected in the most malarious parts of the island, to
which I hope Thwaites will never go -- It would be far better that the Herb[arium].
were taken at a valuation than put up for sale, & in that case you, Bentham,
Thomson & myself might subscribe with Lindley & Brown to buy it, offering
perhaps £100 amongst us, I allude of course to the Cingalore portion only, which I
assume is separate.
Thwaites writes me very nicely & most deeply gratefully for your exertions.
[[2]] I am now as anxious for his success as a Botanist as I ever was for Gardners
& shall write to him at Ceylon as soon as I hear of his having sailed from England.
I was indeed glad you passed Lord Carlisles' note to Hodgson, who shews[sic] me
all the attachment & affection of a brother, & who I shall always regard as one of
my dearest friends on Earth. The Rhododendron books Falconer has written
about, it is all right save the copy to myself, about which pray do not trouble -- I
dare say I am hard upon Reeves -- but I might be dead & buried for all the notice
he takes of me. When at home he used (on rare occasions) to give me copies of
sundry little books. however I have had my say, & if you are content I am
thoroughly so. The book makes me 3 miles taller, but I feel I owe it all to you.
Thanks too for the copies of my Journal, & the Admiralty manual which I long to
see.
Falconer informs me that every one of the 150 Rhododendra roots, chiefly of
Dalhousiae, were dead on arriving at Calcutta *2, really you must not be angry with
me. I do my best & have now ordered 4 Ward's cases up to Darjeeling
[[3]] where I am storing roots for you to put in the cases & send to Calcutta in
November. In the mean time I will send seeds as they ripen (none yet) & have
marked a fine plant of Dalhousiae in young fruit which I shall watch the seeding of.
Thwaites proposeds my sending pollen in letters I never thought of it & now it is too
late. The seeds will be ripe next month.
The Cupressus funebris ? I can not get I fear, the cuttings have not grown at
Darjeeling & only the ♀ tree is in Sikkim, no young plants have been brought here
since the Palmy days of the monks: it is a most beautiful thing -- Larch & Ab[ies].
brunononiana are fruiting abundantly I shall get plenty of seeds -- webbiana (or
Pindrow now has leaves 1-2 inches long), only comes as a very lofty tree & I am
far from sure of getting these. Ab[ies]. spinulosa (Khatrow ? smithiana ?). does not
grow at this (Lachoong) valley -- I have requested Campbell to get me leave to
visit Lachen again in October -- I think the Botanical results of my little Thibetan
cruize (which you may talk of) will astonish you, for number, not that they would
have been increased by going further North, but I found what I so many years
have only dreamed of that
[[4]] remarkable change in vegetation that occurs at the boundary of the Mts &
plains, that prevalence of species & paucity of specimens which marks that curious
zone where the perpetual Snow rises 2000 ft. on Mt faces opposed to the most
sterile country in the inhabited globe. I am indeed more gratified with my Lachen
journey than I can express to you, so long have all my friends here, & at home,
thought the probability of reaching the Thibetan plateau in this direction visionary.
Campbell's & Hodgson's congratulations are extravagant -- I am very pleased too
to think that, any one may now go; the egg shell is broken: the intricate route once
known & the nature of the impediments, it is easy to forestall the one & follow the
other. Of its importance to Botanical results as to the Sikkim Flora you have yet no
idea, nor had I till two days ago, when I returned from a long visit to another pass
of which nor I nor Campbell were aware & which took me to within 10 miles of Pari
& the Holy Mt. Chumalari. I was 4 days away, it is amongst the main ranges East
of Sikkim & leads to Choombi from this: though only of the same height as Kongra
Lama K o n g r a L a m a, this, the K a n k o l a [end of letter missing] *3
ENDNOTES
1. The country formerly known as Ceylon is now called Sri Lanka.
2. The city formerly known as Calcutta is now called Kolkata.
3. The end of this letter is missing but a copy of the complete letter can be found at
JDH_1_10_201-203 (JHC No.90).
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