[[1]]
Darjeeling
July 24, 1848 *1
My dear old Father
I cannot tell you how sorry I am to hear by todays post of your accident & though this
is said to have been the very last day for catching the August mail I will chance this
catching it & reaching you with my other letters. I wish very much that I had been
near you at the time though I might have done no good. Julius should not have let
you wait for etherization: as every minute prolongs the subsequent pains & difficulty of
reduction: he should have had the apparatus himself for in all such cases it is a great
blessing & I would take it myself rather than suffer the terrible agony of reducing a
dislocation. Your arm will no doubt long be weak: but it is a real blessing that it was
not broken.
I have sent Falconer a great lot of mss &c to go home by this mail & have written so
many letters this
[[2]] last wee<k> that really I can hardly get pen to drag along the paper. Today I
have got a Bamboo bow poisoned arrows & quiver with some of the poison root from
Bhotan[Bhutan]: but none of these simple ignorant people can tell me any--thing
about it. It’s a well known thing however, & when my books come I shall know.
Falconer is despairing of an opportunity of sending me the latter & they are therefore
on their way by Post! in small packages
The richness of this Flora is very remarkable & new things come in every day. I
depict & draw roughly the most important including all the Orchideae[.] There is
nothing in seed yet: but a handsome Crawfordia will be soon & many other things. It
is very difficult to dry the seeds in this place for the damp is so great that all my
collections are piled in chairs before a blazing fire. They are as yet in capital order. I
am dreadfully
[[3]] badly off for paper, having used all that Falconer sent me up & all the
newspapers (do you remember the Hurkarus in which Mrs Macks collections came?)
I can lay my hands one. I have however sent three men across the mountains into
Nepaul [Nepal] for as much as they can carry, & in the mean time by dense packing
manage to stow away without checking the drying operation on this account. One of
the most common plants here is a Streptolirion the curious genus figured in
Linn[ean]. Soc[iety]. Trans[actions]. by Edgewor<th.> I long took it for a Saurureae till
it flowered. I sent roots to Calcutta *2 which died: but as soon as my tin boxes come
will send others: it is white flowered; pretty but not handsome, & immensely
abundant here crawling over the ground with Polygona, Potentilla, Fragaria, Arugus
Lysimachia, Balsams, Hydrocotyle & Cyrtandra<ceae.>
I am startled at the prospect of moving the B[ritish] M[useum]. Herb[arium]. to Kew,
because Brown
[[4]] must take deadly offence at it & how this obstacle is to be got over passes my
comprehension. When I reflect on what you have done at Kew in 6 short years I lift
up my hands in astonishment. That it is the only proper place for the
B[ritish].M[useum]. Her[barium]. is evident but how Brown is to be transferred with
the latter is indeed a puzzle. Jenkins invites me to pass a month with him on my way
to upper Assam, but I fear that when I do start I must push on[.] I am writing to him to
have a collection of drugs, articles &c &c. ready for me & to expend one or two
hundred Rupees on such a collection. I think I told you I still hope to reach the Snow
here, & shall under any circumstances make the attempt in October before which it
is impossible to travel through these hills the innumerable valleys are so unhealthy &
the rains so heavy. You have no idea what a poverty stricken place this is as far as the
natives are concerned, I cannot buy any string even, & yet there are some dozen or two
English good European families. Insects are immensely numerous & I bottle down the
beetles &c, but the butterflies damp so fast that I have given them up. I have still but
one Pine & the yew, an Abies Smithiana webbiana & a Juniper: I shall hope to get
Griffiths Larch if I get to the Snow but it must from his journal be a very local plant. I
hope you will like my yarn about the Rhododendrons. I would put odds & sods of
things in my letters but assure you the 5 days of incessant rain they pass through
damps every thing & they would mildew the paper: all books coming by post in
double oil skin arrive wet & have to be dried by the fire. When the rains are over the
climate will be totally changed. Poor Hodgson is very bad this two days, depressed
to a degree[,] I enticed him out to ride this evening for an hour, his system is very
much deranged & though he won’t own it, the news he got to day, from Gray, of a
collection of Thibet [Tibet] &c animals having been ruined on the passage home has
not improved him, some of the animals are unique & procured from beyond the
Snow, at an enormous cost. I have sent two of my men into the interior & expect a
large basketful of plants in 15 days. I pay very liberally, often for trash,& they all like
to bring me things. The Lepchas or aborigines of Sikim [Sikkim] (descended from a
god & goddess who still live on the tip--top of Kinchin junga [Kanchenjunga]) are a
most charming people, so kind & good humoured, regular Tartars, all small,
peaceable, moral, wretchedly po<or> [part of mss missing] intolerably dirty. Booteas
from the neighbouring country are very [part of mss missing] & oppose the English:
they are insupportably insolent dirty rude [part of mss missing] cowardly immoral
people double dies: every [1 word illeg.] of rice [part of mss missing incl entire
bottom line of text]
[[5]] *3 [mss illeg.] <Rajah> of Sikim is a Thibetan from [1 word illeg.] but with no
sympathy with any of the above but who we [part of mss missing]
[[6]] obstacles to Europeans entering the country. The Bootanese are so
incorrigeable[sic] that our Gov[ernmen]t do not acknowledge & will have nothing to
do with them. I have just seen the death of Ld Burghesh Fane's brother, in the paper
-- a sad sot if I remember right. Fane I think is next heir & will go home perhaps. he
is a fine frank rollicking young fellow badly educated but most amiable & void of pride
or vanity. LD. & Lady D[alhousie]. will I *4 think be very sorry to part with him. I have
written to Wheatstone & Wilmot by this mail but you have engrossed all my
correspondence & I shall be surprized[sic] if you have not enough for once[.] I am
still sanguine about Franklin: these ships have the lives of cats. how my dear Father I
hope all your pains are over long ere this. I wish this could have reached your bed
side & hope some previous letter may have You & my mother make Francis
uncommonly happy & in this also your most affectionate Son JD Hooker [signature]
Affectionate regards to Harvey[,] Bentham & all old friends -- Citoyen & Fitch -- When
you have occasion to send me an overland put in a few steel pens or any thing; old
knife -- Let Reeves send me overland the L.J.B. *5 regularly I can afford to pay for its
coming out: beginning with this post & any -- onwards -- it is all I ask from him for
allowing him to print <my> journal in it, tell him he is a kind man & will not neglect to
<let> me have it regularly.
[[7]] [Page seven contains several hand drawn illustrations and diagrams. One
shows genera that appear on the plains and at different heights on the mountainside,
including Rhododendrons at 7000 ft. Another roughly plots the relative heights and
locations of Punkabarrie, Kursiong, Pacheem and Dorjeeling [Darjeeling] above the
plains. There is also a diagram showing mountain peaks Tonglo and Sinchal labelled
with plants that appear on them as well as those that appear in the valleys, a sketch
of Hooker's view of Kinchin junga [Kanchenjunga] from Darjeeling, 28178 ft, a sketch
labelled Quercus and a sketch of Hooker's boat on the Ganges.]
ENDNOTES
1. An annotation written in another hand records that the letter was received on 2d
Oct. [1848]
2. The city formerly known as Calcutta is now called Kolkata
3. There are two lines of text only in the margin of page 5, this text has been badly
obscured by damage and by the binding of the letter into a volume
4. 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 reads: "Paid. via
Southampton | Sir W. J. Hooker | Rl. Gardens | Kew London"
5. London Journal of Botany by Sir William Jackson Hooker
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