Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC42
Darjeeling, India
JDH/1/10 f.108-109
Hooker, Sir William Jackson
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
12-9-1848
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Indian Letters 1847-1851
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
6 page letter over 2 folios
 

JDH thanks his family for letters. Discusses his finances, managed by Jas. Findly of Smith McVicar & Co. Full NIGER FLORA sent. Is glad WJH sent pocket sextant with telescope, will use them to observe terra nova. Lord Dalhousie has ordered the Sikkim Rajah, at Choombi, to let JDH go to the snowy passes. JDH hopes to go over Kinchin [Kanchenjunga] to Tibet so he can describe the world's highest mountain & determine the elevation of the plateau of Central Asia. It is 11000 feet at Leh, the Lakes of Mansarowar [Manasarovar], & Rawin Chad[?] but is undetermined at Yaroo--tsampa [Yalung Tsangpo] river. Alternatively JDH may go to Jongri village, the botany will be similar & include new things. Discusses the races of people: Booteas, meaning natives of Tibet not Bootan [Bhutan] serve the Rajah & oppress the Lepchas, who are North Himalayan Tartars. JDH has collections to send to Calcutta [Kolkata]. Has sent collectors to Nepal & Lepcha parties collect locally& help JDH & Clemanze dry specimens. JDH is keeping a meteorological record measuring rainfall & barometer temperature at Hodgson's house. Mentions Lady Rolles arboretum. Critiques Griffith's publications. Has written to Stocks. Is scathing about Dr Royle. Mentions Grant & Thomas Thomson. Has piece of silk, Tibetan letter & brick of tea for RBG Kew museum & Campbell has a shield. Mentions: copy of journal for Lord D. & republication of extracts, Royal visit to RBG Kew, [John] Lindley [JH] printing JDH's letters in the GARDENERS CHRONICLE & annoying Brown, JH's disapproval of JDH travelling before finishing the FLORA OF AUSTRALIA, Lord Auckland, illness of Sir L. Peel, Doom Palm, Calami, acorns, chestnuts, walnuts, Gordonia wallichii. JDH will return to Darjeeling, the richest field except for Cathmandu [Katmandu] & the Mishmees, to collect spring flora on Kinchin. [Hugh] Falconer is lecturing & maintaining Calcutta Gardens. Discusses cost of post & Citoyen's queries about generic affinities. Gurney has gone to sea.

Transcript

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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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 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 *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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