Darjeeling
July 19, 1848. *1
My dear Father
I have been so extremely occupied this past month that post time is come & I have hardly time to write to you. I have sent down by post dawk *2 to Calcutta *3 (& I earnestly hope they may arrive [in] time to go by this steamer) a parcel, in it -- the conclusion of the Niger Flora Leguminosae which perhaps Bentham will kindly see through the press. There are a few omissions chiefly of D.C. references *4 my books not having come to hand yet. All my sketches I send home at the same time, indifferent, bad & worse. I retain none but one or two of this place -- Drawings of all the Rhododendrons except a starveling[?] dwarf one, of which I send a description, & two of which I sent drawings before; i.e. a large white with silvery underside, a purple which has I hope silvery underside, or if not I have drawn the R. campbelliae twice & not at all R. hodgsonii which is distinguished from it by "folia subta argent. basi in petiolum angustata". I send a dupl[icate] of the R. odorum much larger than the former & a specimen of the middle size. I would

send more specimens but dare not for the damp at this season, but you may depend on it I have a bundle of dried specimens that will astonish you. Three gov[ernmen]t Navy half pay bills go home at the same time which please place to your own acc[oun]t. I myself confess that I do not know whether you can draw the money without a line from Ld. A[uckland]. I believe I should have given you a power of attorney before leaving England. A list of my last remittance of roots to Calcutta goes with them, to show you that I do not forget the Gardens. Many (very many I fear) will die in Calcutta but F[alconer]. has put them into a glass case & will send them by first opportunity. All that will live till a vessel goes shall be sent. This is the 4 lots of roots I sent down but one was all killed -- a bit of Lepcha cloth made of a Boehmeria goes with the parcel & a book from Campbell. I need not say I have several yards of the cloth for you, & two beautiful pieces of cotton cloth besides which latter are really very handsome. I have very great difficulty in getting things from these

natives, they are so poor as to be able to dispose of nothing & don't like manufacturing work at all. I got some pretty baskets made but they have been 3 months doing the trifling job, the bows arrows quiver &c are not forthcoming yet nor 50 other things I have ordered. I have 6 always collecting & two drying papers for Friday; they collect very little. There is but one bulky spadixed palm here which is now drying before the fire for you & dropping its unexpanded blossoms like hail, it is an unruly beast. I have finished my Soane &c journal for you & it is more complete than I intended[.] The As[iatic] Soc[iety]. so kindly urged me to give them an abstract that I have made one, very different in details from that I now send you. Please retain the letter style & announce it as "corrected extracts from private letters" there must be so many errors. Wallich would I dare say see to the spelling of the names &c I should like you when printed to send a copy to Robert Chambers Edinburgh; of Chambers Journal; who would I doubt not be pleased with the compliment: & print portions which would do both the Journal & me good popularizing the gov[ernmen]t expedition with the public.
Smith must really pack roots &c better Sir L. Peel cannot read one of those in the box past last sent, nor of those I took out to Alexandria Ceylon for Sir L. Peel could any be read. Yet the nursery--men send roots & cuttings in beautiful order as far as Calcutta, notched pieces of wood would do perfectly well. *5
I do not say any thing about the bottles being broken you always dreaded it but Falconer says they were shamefully

packed & of all the bottles & boxes we had in the Arct[ic]. Expe[dition] whether private, or gov[ernmen]t. or from College of Surgeons none were broken travelling or packing. Of a dozen large jars I took to the Soane & they were as thin as wafers I carried & bumped most fearfully only 3 got broken during that most smashing journey though full & the cart capsized twice. Falconer says the stoppers were not even tied down these got loose & broke the bottles & no packing or stuffing between the sides of the bottles & cases. I can carry them about safe enough. I cannot get a jar or pickle bottle here for love or money & in Calcutta they are extravagantly dear. I am too old a traveller not to know what can & what can't come safe if properly put up. Enough however I will remedy it the best way I can so that the Garden shall not loose eventually by the accident.
My collection is getting on famously & I shall have an excellent Herbarium to send home[?], as soon as the rains are over in October when I leave this for Assam I hope. Major Jenkins wants me to be

there early in October but that is quite impossible as I must get all my collections redried after the rains, before they can go down to Calcutta. Besides I still hope to get to the snow here.
You will be glad to hear that I have not yet spent £200 since leaving England, though I have had a good deal of expenses which are quite extra. -- I am very comfortable here with Hodgson who is a capital host, we live like hermits & never see any one, at all. I make 2 calls only on Dr & Mrs Campbell & on the Mr Mullers, 2 brothers one in the opium factory at Patna, the other in mint at Calcutta, they are excellent people bachelors & fond of science, here for their health. I get on very comfortably with Campbell who has been most attentive of late, I find he is a dreadfully timorous man & has had so many raps on the knuckles from gov[ernmen]t as to fear promoting my views Northward. It w[oul]d be impossible to give you the ins & outs of the border policy here. Campbell & the gov[ernmen]t are both anxious to forward me on -- the gov[ernmen]t won't order Campbell to for fear of a war with China, Campbell won't run the risks of committing himself without an order. Ld. D[alhousie]. kindly sent me an explicit statement from the Colonial Office of what their ideas of the relations between ourselves & Sikim [Sikkim] should be & these I have put into Campbells

hands. In the mean time C[ampbell]. is helping me all in his power with the Botany of the neighbourhood. I like his wife too very much & though I think he treated me very ill on my coming up I have turned civil at last, he has some small children too who have taken to me & was shown up in the papers the other day, poor man, which was undeserved & touched my pity. Add to all this that I cannot tolerate any other lady here but Mrs C[ampbell]. & see no one else except at church. I wrote & told him this morning that I would ask you to confirm the name of a Rhododendron on his wife. A little compliment that has touched him to the quick: he is very much attached to his wife & I really never saw a man so keenly appreciate a very trifling favor. Now pray don't forget to attach the name to one of the species sent if the one I have given it to be not new. With regard to all the names I pray alter them as you please or name the plants yourself, at my offer[?]. I have no ambitions that way now & I would indeed rather see your initials

at their tails than my own. but I beseech you don't forget this McCallum--Mora. I wish very much the drawing were better, they are very rough, but faithful on my honor. I have drawn & colored 95 species of Fungi for Berkeley & dried more, but they are shockingly bad to dry, worse than in any part of the world I have ever been in, almost all are fleshy. I did think of sending a centuria prima of drawings home but want them to refer to till the Fungus season is over. My drawings of Phaenog. are in proportion. Balanophora is a new species I have since found it, or a variety of it at 9000 ft. I have prepared elaborate dissections for Linn[ean]. Soc[iety]. Trans[actions]. I have heaps of fancy & fine things. By next mail I hope to have an account of the Magnoliae drawn up for you with one or two more species drawn, all are long past flower now. I leave you the naming of the big species, of all. I hope you will name for Lady D[alhousie]. that or the white Rhododendron bye the bye. A letter from Thomson today short & saying he has written long fully to you

so I do not send it, he is a capital fellow. Gurney is well & happy most kindly attentive to all my wants & there are so many that I divide them between him & Falconer nothing can exceed the solicitude of the latter or the practicality & zeal with which he discharges my commissions, looks after my traps[,] books, &c &c names plants for me &c &c he has saved me many pounds in postage besides. He is much better & lecturing 4 times a week in Calcutta, it is impossible that with that duty he can attend to the Garden. Ld. D[alhousie]. has been very ill indeed but is better now. Your excellent letter came the other day. I am glad to have anticipated your wishes concerning the Opium factory & Rhododendrons. To Stocks I have not written yet but will. Hodgson's sister with the elder Miss Colvile will come to the Gardens some day, probably with the Miss Edens.

I am taking up the cudgels for Wallich on all occasions; so has Madden whom I have written to congratulate thereon. His Tent[amen]. Flor[ae]. Nep[alensis]. is a very excellent work. I am glad you saw Col[onel] Lawrence, has he shaved yet? He & Hodgson are bitter enemies, the latter former having been unceremoniously put over H[odgson]'s head in Nepaul [Nepal]. L[awrence]. is wanted sadly in Lahore where my poor friend Curries is getting into hot water. Here I must make the best of all Indian Botanists, & I am sure you will accede that I have said the best of Griffiths work & McLellands rendering of it for it is vilely done I must think though to say so here would be to be thought jealous &c. But what a coxcomb Griffith was to blame Wallich for publishing undescribed names for self glorification; whilst he himself publishes in India a Musc. Itin Assam: when after the Linn[ean]. Soc[iety]. rejected it on the grounds of the characters being insufficient & some of the species already described in well known books -- Voights Hort[us]. Suburb[anus]. Calc[uttensis]. is a poor ponderous affair. -- I do suppose that Brown has all but cut us; Ever since the getting back of the Rafflesias he has held a grudge & his conduct to me about the fossil cones was so mean & jealous

that I could hardly put up with it. He faithfully promised me this years election into the Athenaeum, but puts in Falconer instead who does not want it, even if at home. However, I do not mind the thing at all. I gave him presents of slices of my best fossils that cost several pounds the cutting & all to keep his jealousy down, but it would not do. Proving him in error capped the offence & I suppose I shall never be forgiven. I am more sorry that Bennett should take offense at the museum things. I cannot suppose he really does but must follow his lead.
We have a phosphorescent Fungus here but I have only seen the mycelium as yet, an all but invisible patch on decayed wood bounded by a black line such as divides the compartments between the cells in that curious piece of honey--colored wood from Borneo which Belcher gave us.

On looking over this letter written last night I can hardly read it myself -- the damp has ruined the paper so I trust to my mothers deciphering powers though. We had heard of a grand discovery last night brought by the post from Col[onel] Waugh the Surveyor General who was here last season measured the snowy peaks but took his work away to calculate. He writes that the culminant peak 40 miles off due N[orth]. & opposite me is 28178 feet high: the highest mountain in the world! it is one of the true Himalayah -- Chamalari a little East of this & which rises from the plain of Thibet [Tibet] isolated from the great chain is only 24000. (it has been called 28000 & 30,000) Waugh is now measuring Dawalgiri in Nepaul long reputed 28.000 which may possibly prove higher than this, but it is not likely. I do hope to go to the snow on this giant yet, which rejoices in the name of Kinchin--junga [Kanchenjunga] from here it is a grand spectacle. *6