[[1]]
Darjeeling
Sept 12 1848
My dear Father
A Marseilles letter bag leaves this today & I hasten to acknowledge thereby the
receipt last night of yours, my mothers, Bessies & Frances letters -- many thanks for
all of them & for all the things you have done for me. I don't quite understand about
the money. I certainly have not spent £ 500[.] On Smith McVicar & Co receiving the
draft in my favour, they wrote to me, begging me even during the uncertainty of
money affairs in Calcutta *1, not to place more of it in their hands than I required for 4
or 8 months. I therefore filled up the draft for £300 & £30 I had drawn on them before
they got the form. Leaving me still £ 170 to draw, for, as the complement of the
handsome allowance & which I have not touched yet. I am utterly ignorant of the
ways & means of doing business either here [or] at home. Jas. Findly one of the
Easter hills & your old pupil does all for me & no doubt it is all right though how they
manage it is not clear to me. Their desire that I should not place all in their hands is
considered a most honourable proceeding on their part as men of business. You
may be
[[2]] satisfied that I have only spent about £300 & have only drawn for the £330 since
leaving England. I will hunt up their letters however & find out where the difficulty is -at present I suppose they have not honored the £500 draft but rather left me to honor
it by such instalments as I should think proper.
I was not at all surprized at not hearing from you before, as in the first place I do not
deserve a letter till the Niger Flora, (now all gone long ago) should be in your hands,
& again I know both how busy you were & how bad your arm must be. I am very glad
that you did not buy the silk Nautilus & did get the P[ocket]. S[extant]. with a
Telescope. Now that I am going to an unvisited country by any European I want to
be as accurate as I can, for whatever I do will be pulled to pieces or confirmed by
future travellers. I am however forestalling the good news I have to give you; that
Lord D[alhousie] tells me he has opened a peremptory order to the Sikkim Rajah to
give me full leave to travel to the snowy passes & to grant me every assistance. No
one expected that Ld D[alhousie]. would do this, & considering how ambiguous are
our relations with this crusty imbecile & how much caution the carrying out the object
requires, it is the very strongest proof of Lord D[alhousie]'s interest in our & my
objects that could be. The Rajah is now at Choombi on the borders of Thibert [Tibet]
N[orth]. E[ast]. of this. I want to go due N[orth] & the
[[3]] Rajah luckily will prefer my going in any direction rather than Choombi. That he
will pay no attention to this request I am well aware, but it prevents him I hope
throwing obstacles in my way such as by forbidding the sale of provisions or kidnapping
my serv[ant]ts. Campbell is extremely attentive & solicitous & we have now
ascertained the existence of 5 passes to Thibet [Tibet], one over the shoulder of
Kinchin [Kanchenjunga] is very seldom visited it leads at once to the table land & it is
said the road is uninhabited for 2 marches on the Thibet side -- I hope to make for
this & thus accomplish the double object of [one word struck through, illeg] being the
first to make a practical account of the highest mountain in the world & solve the
grand problem of physical geography the elevation of the great plateau of central
Asia. This has now been measured at Leh its eastern western extremity where it is
11000 ft at the Lakes Mansarowar [Manasarovar] & Rawin rhad which is the great
watershed of central Asia & is 15200 ft but no one has ascertained it East of this latter,
i.e. along any part of the bed or the Yaroo--tsampa [Yalung Tsangpo] (Barrrampoota
[Brahmaputra] of Thibet). If the Rajah peremptorily opposes my visiting the passes I
will go to a village called Jongri on the face of Kinchin at a guessed elevation 12 or
14000 ft & said to be 1/2 days climb from the perpetual snow. As far as Botany is
concerned there is little choice, that of the Thibet plain must be very scanty but I long
very much to see it.
[[4]] That of the snowy mts is much the same whether at Jongri or the passes E[ast].
of Kinchin. No one you know has visited the snow any where E[ast]. of Kumaon: it is
quite new & unexplored & if its Botany is as different from that of Gossan Than
[Gosainthan] as that of these hills & valleys is from those of Cathmandu [Kathmandu]
there will be a glorious harvest to reap. I start in October, as soon as the rains are
moderated & the rivers sunk; at present the country is impassable. Pray do not say
much of this project as yet[.] There are so many slips between ear & lip & the objects
to be attained so fully will answer my most sanguine expectations that I cannot hope
for complete success. There is no danger whatever attending the excursion, a little
trouble & difficulty with the Rajahs innumerable petty head men must be expected. I
am quite prepared to receive a great deal of insolence & to put up with any thing
short of direct opposition: they are great bullies & cowards are the Booteas, by which
I do not mean Bootan [Bhutan] people but natives of Thibet (or Bhota) many of
whom are settled in Sikkim & to which country the Rajah belongs by birth. The Lepchas
or rightful natives of the soil are also a N[orth]. Himal or Tartar race, but a charming
people mild simple & good: very timorous however & dare not guide into Sikkim for
fear of the Rajah's displeasure & that of his myrmidons who are all chosen from the
Boteas & of course profit by the downfall of the Lepchas. My collections are getting
on famously but I am dreadfully off for paper: the men sent to
[[5]] Nepaul [Nepal] 4 months ago have not returned owing to the state of the rivers:
& the whole low country is so flooded that my things from Calcutta cannot get along.
I have a very large collection of roots &c to go down but wait till the rains moderate.
My man is the best plant collector & drier I could ever expect to get & I am trying to
get another like him, having wholly given up the Madras *2 man. The Lephcas[sic]
also are doing well I send the parties out turn about: one party of 4 or 5 always here
changing & drying papers with Clemanze or collecting hard by, the other also of 4, 6
or 8 according to where they go, are always in the field, marching 20 miles or so of a
round. The drawing arranging &c keeps me very hard at work but in these incessant
rains except to read off the Barometer temperature &c I have nothing else to do.
Your letter interests me very much: if I did complain of the May & June weather here
all I can say it is nothing to August & Sept[embe]r. I measure the fall of rain daily &
once caught 5 inches in less than 24 hours. 9 fell at the same time in other parts of
the station: but Hodgsons house is 500 ft higher more drizzly & foggy & less
persistently rainy. I should like to have seen Lady Rolles arboretum. I am glad we
are of an accord as to Griffiths Bot[anical]. Publ[ication]. The journal is infamously
done & the want of maps, footnotes, & the bad spelling[,] the making what Griffiths
has used as convention terms in a private journal pass as specific names, (Quercus
robur for instance & 50 others) is too bad & should be noticed by you. The more I
hear of Griffith the more I don't like him; overbearing, insolent, & rude, violently
opinionative, prejudiced is the character he gets from those who knew him casually
& who were not in a position to be partizans[sic] or opponents. -- I should certainly
be glad to get a copy or two of my journal & that Lord D[alhousie]. should receive
one from you.
I have written to Stocks: but I am sure that to get him any new appointment the Court
should interfere or recommend it, it is their duty to do so & that flatulent gentlemen
Dr Royle's, over whose cumbrous trash on Himalayan every thing Hodgson & I have
been answering ourselves vastly. Grant of Calc[utta] is a very good fellow & w[oul]d
be very sensible of any little mark of attention you could make to him. I sent
T[homas] T[homson]'s letter by this months mail. I am very glad to hear of the
museum advances, I have got little lately but a splendid piece of scarlet silk from
Campbell & Thibetan letter which it enclosed & which with my great brick of tea will
illustrate the fashion of sending a Bhoti present & letter. Campbell has also a shield
& one or two little things for you. It is already in the India papers that the Q[ueen].
P[rince]. A[lbert]. &c have visited you & afterwards the Garden. The moment th my
journals reach Calcutta they will be snapped up & reprinted by these hungry 1d a
liners all over India. I can prevent this in part if I had a copy by sending the best of
them through Gurney the best selected bits -- Brockedon is a very good fellow my
best compliments when you see him again also to Mrs B[rockedon] -- It is no use
Brown's kicking as he does, & being nasty about the museum. I am very sorry that
he should be so impracticable & forgetful of all former friendships & kindness. I want
to write to Lindley but know
[[6]] that he would put parts of my letter in G[ardeners]. C[hronicle]. again offend
Brown by Hook or by Crook. L[indley]. gave me a slap I saw for travelling on my own
pleasure before Fl[ora] Aust[ralia] was finished to which I can only say pooh pooh. I
am ve<ry> glad to hear Ld. A[Auckland] is pleased with my journals & my writing to
him, he has been a most valuable friend to me more than I can tell through his
introduction to Colvile -- Poor Sir L. Peel is very unwell & [six words struck through,
illeg.] he tells me he must give up his fine house &c but this is confidential. Glad the
Doom Palm vegetates: I remember the fruit of the S[outh]. Africa one well. I can send
three Calami when ripe -- also Acorns Chestnuts & Walnuts but none will be ripe for
2 months & they sprout or are eaten as fast as they fall. Tell Walli<ch> *3 that
Gerdonia wallichii is most abundant 3000ft below this & one of the finest timber trees
I ever beheld, it is also wild, like the Sal [Shorea robusta], but far less abundant. I
have finished my journal from Bhaugulpore [Bhagalpur] to this place & am now going
up that to the Teesta & Bootan frontier & that to Tonglo. If my snowy expedition is
successful I shall return here in May & get the spring flora of Kinchin as I am sure it
will be better to work one spot well than wander, as also that, except; the valley of
Cathmmandu & Mishmis, there is no better Botanical station in the whole Himal than
this. Falconer is worked to death lecturing in Calcutta, a duty in my opinion
incompatable[sic] with that of the Gardens. Pray tell my Mother that your & her letters
to me cost me nothing Falconer forwards all franked: when I send you my English
letters in time they all go through him & to Calcutta free, but generally I am too late for
this & have to pay. It is also Indian postage & foreign that I feel & not the English,
that from England costs me nothing. Best regards to Citoyen, tell him that I have not
the instinct to recognize Melianthus from the meagre description of "its being put into
Rutaceae but not belonging there." I have lots of belle chose, cá tondres & choses
montrant l'affinite between Rues & Rubi, Carrotes & Caryotas or any thing else he
likes. Hodgson continues improving & sends best regards. Gurney is gone to sea &
talks of possibly continuing at Calcutta. Best love to my Moth[er] & Bessy & many
thanks for the delightful letters. I write to no one else by this mail. I am your
affect[ionate] son Jos D Hooker [signature]
P.S. Campbell has just sent me word of his having sent to the Rajah to say that I
start for the passes E[ast]. of Kinchin in 20 days *4
ENDNOTES
1. The city formerly known as Calcutta is now called Kolkata
2. The city formerly known as Madras is now called Chennai
3. The address of the recipient appears here as the letter would originally have been
folded in such a way that it formed its own 'envelope'. The address read: "via
Marseilles | To Sir W. Hooker | Rl Gardens | Kew | Nr London"
4. This post script is written along the margin of page one
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