Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC24
Ganges, 12' below Benares, India
JDH/1/10 f.55-58
Hooker, Sir William Jackson
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
16-3-1848
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Indian Letters 1847-1851
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
8 page letter over 4 folios
 

JDH is on the Ganges en route from Mirzapore to Bhagulpore & Darjeeling . He describes the climate & riverbank vegetation: grass, Dhal, Grain, Cicer arietinum lentil, Carthamus, Vetches, rice, Argemone mexicana, a Mudar possibly Calotropis sp., Ficus, Artocarpus, Leguminosae, Toddy Palm, a Phoenix, also animals. He describes his boat, Hindu crew & travelling set-up including sketch of boat. His servants are Clemanze & a Muslim called Thirkahl. He has a Pummalow [pomelo] in his provisions. At Ghazeepore JDH will meet Trench, see manufacture of rose water, & Bengal Army stud horses. At Dinapore he will see opium works & Dr. Irving. JDH explains the process of collecting & drying plants whilst with Williams, including drying paper used, the weather pattern & why it is the wrong season for collecting. Dryness in India means few Epiphytal Orchideae, ferns & Cryptogammia except Riccia. Other plants collected incl.: Vallisnera; Villarsiae; Potamogetons; one fungi, an Agaric; a Fissidens moss, few lichens & no Hepaticae. He describes an aboriginal bellows made of leaves procured for the Kew Museum, at fairs he buys boxes, beads & medicines. Roberts gave samples of cultivated grains. JDH critiques work done on the Calcutta [Kolkata] Botanic Gardens by William Griffith[WG] & Robert McLelland [McClelland] & outlines changes he advised Hugh Falconer make. He describes gale & dust storm of 18 Mar. Lord Dalhousie made Gurney Assistant Surgeon of the General Hospital. At request of Colville JDH wrote to Lord Auckland. He discusses Auckland's reputation. Describes a gun bought from Brown. Wight has promised to get wood & seeds for Kew. JDH wants permission from the Rajah to enter Sikkim. Discusses going to north of Bhutan to Tibet in the current climate of trade & war with China & the likely flora. The richest botanical areas in India are Sikkim, upper Assam, Sylhet & Mishmee & Cosiah [Khasi] hills. Discusses his Bengal collection. Mentions WG's publications & Harvey's microscope.

Transcript


Ganges, 12' below Benares
March 16. 1848
My dear Father
How you would be amused if you could see me, stuck in the middle of the Ganges, by reason of a foul wind blowing so strong that even with the current of some 3' or 4' per hour, this floating cottage cannot be pulled or tracked against it. The river is about twice as broad as the Thames at Mortlake, with banks of 12 or 15 ft above its level, sloping & sandy on one side, shelving & precipitous of hard alluvium on the other. Withered grass abounds on both banks: wheat & corn, Dhal (Cajana?) & Grain Cicer arietinum? (a lentil) Carthamus, Vetches & (empty) Rice (fields), are the staple products covering the country. Of bushes there are scarce any, but the omnipresent Argemone mexicana & a Mudar (Calotropis). The trees are scarce & small, Ficus, Artocarpus & some Leguminosae prevailing. Palms are rare & will be for some--way down the river, only two kinds are seen, the Toddy Palm & a Phoenix , the latter characteristic of a drier soil than the former. In the animal creation we have men, women & children on the banks & plying up & down the river, on ugly black Buffalo & the handsome Goe, a sacred cow, the bullock of which (called Bhil) is used for draught. Camels we sometimes see, & rarely an elephant. Ponys[sic] abound as do goats & dogs. Porpoises frequent the river higher up than this even & alligators also: insects are rare always excepting flys[sic] & mosquitoes of whose bites I can enumerate 80 since last night; on my first arrival they inflamed a little, now a little red spot is all I have to complain of, and don't feel that. The weather is delicious, the therm[ometer] varying between 60 & 98 or 100 in the day, with generally more or less wind & sometimes a dust storm: no clouds are to be seen today & the air is bracing, but yesterday a scattered white cloud or two betokened a hot 24 hours & though far from very uncomfortable, the day was sufficiently warm. I am now on my way from Mirzapore to Bhagulpore, when I go up to Darjeeling at once, & have given up any intention of visiting Calcutta *1 at in the first instance. There being no steamer from Mirzapore I hired a native boat: very like a floating Haystack or thatched cottage, some 40 ft long & 15 broad it draws 1 1/2 ft water & the deck is little more above the water edge, on which a house is erected, of matting thatched on roof & my portion lined neatly with a reed work formed of long culms of Saccharum. The accompanying will give you some idea of the beauty. [A sketch of the boat described appears here, the rudder and stage are labelled and there is also a diagram showing the layout of the interior, which is made up of a captain's room, kitchen and JDH's room with room for a table and his Palkee.]

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Ganges, 12' below Benares
March 16. 1848
My dear Father
How you would be amused if you could see me, stuck in the middle of the Ganges, by reason of a foul wind blowing so strong that even with the current of some 3' or 4' per hour, this floating cottage cannot be pulled or tracked against it. The river is about twice as broad as the Thames at Mortlake, with banks of 12 or 15 ft above its level, sloping & sandy on one side, shelving & precipitous of hard alluvium on the other. Withered grass abounds on both banks: wheat & corn, Dhal (Cajana?) & Grain Cicer arietinum? (a lentil) Carthamus, Vetches & (empty) Rice (fields), are the staple products covering the country. Of bushes there are scarce any, but the omnipresent Argemone mexicana & a Mudar (Calotropis). The trees are scarce & small, Ficus, Artocarpus & some Leguminosae prevailing. Palms are rare & will be for some--way down the river, only two kinds are seen, the Toddy Palm & a Phoenix , the latter characteristic of a drier soil than the former. In the animal creation we have men, women & children on the banks & plying up & down the river, on ugly black Buffalo & the handsome Goe, a sacred cow, the bullock of which (called Bhil) is used for draught. Camels we sometimes see, & rarely an elephant. Ponys[sic] abound as do goats & dogs. Porpoises frequent the river higher up than this even & alligators also: insects are rare always excepting flys[sic] & mosquitoes of whose bites I can enumerate 80 since last night; on my first arrival they inflamed a little, now a little red spot is all I have to complain of, and don't feel that. The weather is delicious, the therm[ometer] varying between 60 & 98 or 100 in the day, with generally more or less wind & sometimes a dust storm: no clouds are to be seen today & the air is bracing, but yesterday a scattered white cloud or two betokened a hot 24 hours & though far from very uncomfortable, the day was sufficiently warm. I am now on my way from Mirzapore to Bhagulpore, when I go up to Darjeeling at once, & have given up any intention of visiting Calcutta *1 at in the first instance. There being no steamer from Mirzapore I hired a native boat: very like a floating Haystack or thatched cottage, some 40 ft long & 15 broad it draws 1 1/2 ft water & the deck is little more above the water edge, on which a house is erected, of matting thatched on roof & my portion lined neatly with a reed work formed of long culms of Saccharum. The accompanying will give you some idea of the beauty. [A sketch of the boat described appears here, the rudder and stage are labelled and there is also a diagram showing the layout of the interior, which is made up of a captain's room, kitchen and JDH's room with room for a table and his Palkee.]

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The Crew & captain amount to 6 naked Hindoos [Hindus], one of whom stays by the huge rudder, sitting on a bamboo stage astern: the others pull 4 oars in the very bows opposite my door, or track the boat along the river bank. I have two serv[an]ts. 1. my Factotum (Friday) or alias Clements & a Musselman [Muslim] or table--attendant, who cooks & waits, is a handsome thin fellow called Thirkahl. In my room (for cabin I cannot bring myself to call it) is my Palkee, in which I sleep & to which Clements Clamanze has is now fittinged mosquitoe curtains, a table (&chair) at which I now write & on it my compass & a huge Pummalow [pomelo] as big as a childs head, (most wretched eating). The Pummalow is that immense vapid orange of E[ast] & W[est] Indies & whose English name I cannot remember. On one side are all my papers & plants under arrangement to go home; on the other my provisions, Rice, sugar, curry--stuff, a preserved Ham & cheese (which 2 are my luxuries) &c &c. Around hang telescope, tin Botanical box, Dark lantern, Barometer & Thermometer &c &c &c. Our position is often ashore, & Hindoo--like on the Lee shore, going bump, bump, bump so that I can hardly write.
My first destination is Ghazeepore, where I have a letter to the magistrate. Mr Trench, a good artist, where also I want to see or hear of the manufacture of Rose--water & the stud of breeding troop of the Horses for a great part of the Bengal Army. Thence to Dinapore, where I am to see the opium works & a Dr Irving said to be a Botanist (& I sincerely hope he can tell me the name of the commonest plants). After that I shall arrive at Darjeeling by the originally intended time, end of March. I had hoped to have visited Rajmahal, a little below Bhagulpore, to have sent Ferns & Orchideae straight down for Kew, but the rains set in at Darjeeling in beginning of May, so I have no time to lose & I want to be sending a continual supply from thence. These will go down in the hot season & must be repacked in Calcutta, examined & sent on to England. Hitherto I have got on very comfortably & cheaply, only draw under £100 of the money you kindly forwarded for my use.
I am fortunate in having to take this slow conveyance down, it costing me about £10 altogether, whereas the steamer would have upwards of doubled that & I should have seen nothing on the road or been able to write & arrange as I can here all day long.-- Most grievously I need the time, especially for my notes journal &

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correspondence. I have been most annoyed by the want of impatient in wanting a collector; the whole trouble of collecting gathering, drying, &c has thus fallen on my own shoulders with that of Clemanze, who has always plenty else to do for me, & who in Mr Wiliams camp had to take his share of bullock--driving & transport of my goods. On the other hand the sparsity of vegetation, burnt up season & absence of seed or roots to collect has allowed me to make a better illustrative collection of the Botany of the the countries passed through than I other--wise should have done. My specimens are well dried; this is no difficulty with a little trouble at this season, three changings dry the majority & the difficulty is to prevent them drying too fast (yet would you believe Wallich & Griffith's plant driers were in the habit of pressing once in paper & then spreading all out in the sun:-- no wonder their specimens are so contatuplicate[sic]. Of seeds I have some few packages all I thought worth collecting or indeed could get but the season is far too late: most plants of the plain flower in the rains, June, July & ripen their seeds before Christmas: a very few such as I have now, flower in the cold season (Dec[ember]. -- March) & fruit in the ensuing hot season, (April -- May). Annihilation seems to follow at once the fruiting of the annuals, annual-stemmed plants, & flowering branches of the perennials, the excessive dryness & dry winds of Ja[nuar]y --March, reducing all annual plants & annual organs of perennials to dust. You will better understand this by an example -- of grasses, & such annuals every vestige is burnt up (comparatively speaking of Convolvulaceae which so swarm in the plains of India, I have hardly discovered 3 species, whilst of the shrubs & trees still in leaf, they do not show of the symptoms of ever having flowered or of ever going to). Nothing has surprised me so much as the dryness of this part of India: & the absence of Epiphytal Orchideae ( I have but 3) of ferns & other Cryptogammia. The prevailing genus of Crypt[ogammia] is Riccia! a species of which swarms every--where in the beds of the rivers -- of water plants I have a few & some handsome species, a small Vallisneria, very different from V. spiralis, & 2 Villarsiae & some Potamogetons. Fungi are extremely rare I have but one Agaric, in spring they are said to be more abundant on the plains. Of mosses only a Fissidens, no Hepaticae & very few Lichens.
With regard to things for the Kew Museum I have done my best; (but the scanty population of the districts I passed over is against much exercise of the arts.) One of the most curious things

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procured (& I think ever seen) is a fine bellows made entirely of the leaves of a tree & used for smelting iron by the indigenes or aborigines of these parts. Nothing can prove their poverty more strikingly. The article is the size of a very large cheese, has a bamboo snout & is altogether a great curiosity. At the Fairs I invariably pick up beads worn when under a Vow or by the Brahmins, boxes & such like, & all the gums & drugs I can procure. The number of the latter are in Legions & I am puzzled how to set about it. Hitherto I have got together samples of about 250 kinds, with the Hindoo [Hindu] name on each, when I can I get the Hindoo names expressed in English & also in Persian, which character alone is to be relied upon, as the Hindoo wants vowels & will admit of much ambiguity pronunciation. I take to the fair or market a lot of seed--papers & make the merchant write the name outside in Hindoo, afterwards I take any opportunity of having this transcribed to English or Persian. Much of what I send are perfect rubbish I do not doubt, & I had to calculate my means of purchasing -- hence very small samples may imply, either that I could not afford to buy more (as in the case of the kernel of the double cocoa-nut) or that it was only worth getting as much as the stuff for the sake of having the name, & knowing it to be used in medicine, (as the Dates & many specimens of dirt). Of the cultivated grains I also have got all I could, some as Dhal, Grain &c may grow (probably none of the medicinal seeds will) others are only as prepared for me by the natives: as the split Dahl, prepared Rice. Of the Rice in ear, none is on the ground at this season; and I have got but small samples of each with great difficulty, chiefly from a Mr Roberts at Mirzapore, there are heads (ears) of 26 kinds some of great beauty & very different from one another, these will look well on paper in the Museum. The number of things still to be got at every market is infinite & I shall go on amassing: but I have been only 2 months here now & cannot bargain properly: it also takes a great deal of time
(I had a letter from [Hugh] Falconer the other day & another previously written is seeking me somewhere. He has arranged that Mr & Mrs McLelland continue at the Garden house. I knew McLelland was most anxious to effect this arrangement, that he might continue the printing of Griffith's papers & drawings: but with the alterations that I should wish to make in the garden it is one I should not have entered into. I have written to F[alconer]. my notice of what the Garden should be, & am wondering how he takes it, as it amounts the annihilation of all Griffith & McLelland have done. There are 4 points to which I think he should attend. 1. Making a proper River front, clearing away

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for that purpose a good 1/3 mile of the most horrid scrub you could wish to see avoid seeing (out of which G[riffith]. & McL[elland]. cut every fine tree I believe) to open vistas into the garden & to make the place look reputable from the river, as Sir L. Peels does (beautiful) immediately opposite. 2. To replot the whole of the systematically arranged Garden, which is G[riffith]. & Mc[Lelland]s pride -- some 30 or 50 acres of ground, an impenetrable jungle I believe in Wallich's time, now a dead flat with a few good trees. Tanks here & there & some sheds for shelter, all so bare that plants can't grow & if they could no visitor could stop in the sun even if the height of the cold season (when I was there) to study them. This dead flat contains Griffith's, Roxburgh's & Jack's monuments, very neat, 5 ft. high things, of this sort [a small sketch of a square, pedestal type monument appears here] which are the conspicuous features on the ground, & should be centres for walks systematically arranged -- but instead of that all the walks over the 50 acres, wind twist, turn & serpentine in the most extraordinary manner; have no relation to the monuments, to one another, or to any other object of use or ornament in the Garden, it is impossible to get straight anywhere or to guess where the paths are coming from or going to. I never hesitated to walk over beds & paths -- & to add to the uglyness[sic] their horror of symmetry has led them to place the monuments out of the centre of the open spaces they occupy! The surface of this ground (1/4 of the garden) is as or more level than Kew by the Great Palm house, & I have recommended that it be laid out in the Italia style, the monuments placed in reference to main walks, which should also lead to conspicuous features in other parts of the garden, abundance of trellis work covered with creepers & the judicious planting of large trees would provide excellent shelter for the herbaceous & other plants of this the "Bengal garden" as I should dub it. -- 3.d There is a fine piece of ground made very hilly, covered with good trees &c adjoining the former, this was Wallich's "Nepaul hills" & now the most agreeable part of the Garden. There they may exhaust their skill in serpentine walks &c & this should be continued & increased both in planting & undulating & kept (as Wallich rightly intended it) for the hill plants which love shade protection & moisture, far more than any others, & can only there obtain it. 4. The fine house stands at an angle of the open flat (abused above) & exposed to the power of the sun on two sides[.] Like all Indian houses too, the white lime & white wash turns black, & the look of the poor tenement from the Bengal

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garden is ghastly in the extreme: worse than that, you emerge from the drive on to the said open space, into a roasting sun on a vile gravel oval studiously placed obliquely to the house & with walks running away at angles which make you squint to look at them -- for 30 acres in front & to one side is grass, worse than English stubble field & red gravel paths -- you cannot conceive anything so disastrous, to go out of the house into the garden is going out of the frying pan on to the Grid iron & I used to hop about like a bear on hot bricks till I reached the remains of the Mahogany grove some 200 yds off or more. I have recommended a bamboo fence & creepers (the latter are to be had all the year round green) enclosing some few acres around the house, within which a flower garden & shrubbery & the walks to be properly laid out within & without. Lastly there is room (& to spare) around the garden for a good arboretum & pleasure ground. McLelland encourages music & Dances, fishbones & orange peel, so that the place looks at times more like Alger's booth at Greenwich fair, the Common Gardens or Baron Nathan's Elysium at Gravesend than a place for profit & Instruction. I am sure if good Ld Morpeth saw what I have, it would be a profitable sight. I declare to McLelland he ought either to confine it this to a pleasure ground or lead the first hops & hob nob on gin & water himself to chocolate colored damsels in boots & large uncles, that ogle himself & myself in our scientific vocations. As it is he is often asked to join & bring Mrs McLelland at the picnic & polka. Whatever you do never let the pleasure ground open into the garden.) *2
X The gale of this morning (March 18.) still continues & has become a Dust Storm: the horizon is about 20 yds off & of a sandy ashy white with clouds of sand, the trees hardly visible & every thing here in my boat covered with a fine coat of impalpable powder. This collects from the boundless, alluvial plains through which the Ganges flows. Trees are scarcely visible & so dry is the wind that drops of water vanish like magic. What Cryptogamia could stand the transition from parching like this to the 3 months floods of mid summer? when the country, for miles, will be under water!
(Yesterday (at Benares) I heard with sincere pleasure that Gurney[?] has received the Ass[istan]t Surgeonship of the Gen[era]l Hospital from Ld. Dalhousie: I hope it is true, I cannot tell you how kind I take it of Ld. D[alhousie]. If all my own Indian prospects fail (& they are not in my hands to order) I shall have done some good, by coming out, & to a number of my own family, few of whom wholly approved of my leaving home. A Surgeon told me of it who knew neither of us, -- an old pupil of yours in 1830 I think.

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At the Colvilles request I have written rather a long letter to Lord Auckland about what I have seen & done, I daresay he can hardly be troubled reading it & should not have made it so long or dwelt upon certain trivialities, except for his nephews desire. Ld. A[uckland]. was exceedingly liked here by all private individuals, though his public conduct is with regard state affairs universally reprobated. I have seen very many in whose house he has sojourned all of whom speak of his departure from India with real regret, he took so much friendly interest in all. It is much to be deplored that he occupied the throne here at a time when more ability than he has was required. No one they say was better as a peace Governor & promoter of all good projects. He is always called painfully shy, he know looks more awful than awe--struck. I regret not going to Calcutta before the hills, very much, but feel it quite my duty not to. With the money thus saved (about £30) I have bought a Gun from Mr Brown at Mirzapore; as I find I should not be without one: it was left behind, as many such are, by a partner suddenly leaving India who is & hampered by luggage, cost £50, is all but new & in perfect order; with double sets of every extra tool, trigger--springs & every thing. I had asked Bell to look out for one in Calcutta at £15, but thought better to secure this at £25. I have heard twice from Wight who remains out till 1850 & promises to get seeds for Kew & woods &c for the museum -- he writes very kindly offering me every thing if I will go to Coimbatore. Still I am quite uncertain of my exact route, at Dorjeeling [Darjeeling] I have lots to do close to the house door, & I ask Ld Dalhousie for a recommendation to the Rajah of Sikkim (our miserable saucy dependent) t allow me to visit the snow of his mountains as there is little chance of reaching Thibet [Tibet] by that quarter except Ld. D[alhousie]. agrees with me, that recent events in China, & our depression of trade in India, are great causes why we should seek to establish a trade with Thibet through Bootan [Bhutan], the Thibetans being anxious for our goods & we would supply at 1/4 the price the Chinese traders demand. Ld. D[alhousie]'s argument to me always has been, that as long as the Thibetans acknowledge Chinese authority, we should not interfere: this of course is all fair until we are at war, as now, with China. The richest Bot[anical] countries in India are undoubtedly Sikkim, upper Assam, Sylhet & the ranges of hills (Mishmees) Cosiah or Cassiah hills) [Khasi Hills], the former wholly unexplored, the latter partially by Griffiths. I should go to the Mishmees where also Griffiths has been twice were not the climate of Assam to be to be passed over is unhealthy after June, before which I could hardly get up so high to the East[war]d[?]. The flora of Thibet N[orth] of Bootan, I do not expect to be rich, but very curious, as a mixture of China, Himalayah & Altai: it is all terra incognita -- Darjeeling is horridly rainy & in end of May & June it torrents every day & all day for weeks[.] Sylhet (Cheera Poonjee) [Cherrapunji] is I hear worse! however I can't help it & have had drought enough this last 2 months. The flowering season is during the rains!

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I have such capital drying paper, of the very kind you like, thick woolly dense blue grey stuff, used in refining sugar, very dear but worth any money. I paid £2 for 1/4 ream, but each sheet folds into 4 of 22x18 inches! -- I am very sorry I did not take (or have sent) all my paper out from England (whence this came). Though Wallich, falconer & all advised me to get it here I have seen none fit for drying or packing made in Bengal. My vasculum is at this season useless to collect in (capital for a travelling box) as it becomes so hot you cannot touch it. In the rainy Himalayah it will be excellent, especially those vast ones coming out in "Glenorchy"[?] for which I shall poney[?]. *3 My serv[an]t is so good that I bought him a poney[sic] to save his long walks & carry the collecting papers. I sold it before leaving Mirzapore, losing only 20/-- you will smile when I tell this is 1/3 of the whole price, & it carried him 20 miles a day. All collecting here must be done by placing the plants at once in paper, for which purpose I carry large strong brown, as being lasting, but I paid enormously for it. In bulk my collections look very respectable for 2 months & I do not fear your finding fault with quantity, or drying, as to quality I am very doubtful, having no books & little reason to suppose the majority any thing but the common plants of Bengal. I have got every--thing this season produces, that came in my way & a knowledge of the look of whole Botanical regions which however poor in species are highly interesting in other points. I long to hear your opinion of Griffiths' publications. I really doubt if McLelland could do better than print them as they were, though so incapable as a Botanist. The labor to a man who would have attempted the proper reduction Mss, would (as I know from the little I tried to do) be Herculean & £2000 would not publish the plates as those of Fl[ora]. Ant[arctica]. are -- I am curious to hear Falconer's opinion. Harvey's microscope was left if I remember right with Forbes. I suppose he has received it ere this, I both got it, paid for it & received the money from Harvey. Your ever most affectionate son Jos D Hooker [Signature] Love to all.

ENDNOTES


1. The current name of the city of Calcutta in Kolkata.
2. Text enclosed in parenthesis, beginning on page 4 and ending here. This was probably done at a later date to indicate that this part of the letter should not be published.
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 is as follows: "Bearing -- Via Southampton, Sir W. J. Hooker, Rl. Gardens Kew, London."

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