To G.Bentham Esqre.
Darjeeling, April 1st 1849
My dear Sir, I have always thought myself so secure of an indulgent excuse, from your kindness, that I have allowed myself to continue silent, longer than good manners can sanction. And this has been the greater fault; because my father has mentioned you in almost every letter, telling me how much I owe you for taking up the Niger Flora. Now that Citoyen Planchon has fled, this is a greater boon than ever; & I hardly know how to thank you sufficiently. You have, I am sure, often congratulated me on finding, in these distant lands, such a home as that from which I address you.. Mr. Hodgson is an extremely gentlemanly & accomplished man, & has conducted himself toward me, in all respects, as a father might have done. I cannot describe the obligation I owe him. Apartments, books, society, the use of servants, & numberless occasions of saving expense, by which I am enabled to make many purchases for myself & for the Kew Museum, which would be otherwise beyond my reach,-- for these, & much more, I am his debtor. All the last rainy season was passed under this roof, up to Oct. & now, in March, I have returned hither again. But I hope to travel further & more this year than I did during the last, & I only regret that I must close my letters by the present Mail, before receiving any definite announcement of the Rajah’s intentions. In many respects, the Himalaya Range has agreeably disappointed me; especially in having afforded me the opportunity of selecting from one of its Tribes, a number of men, who have made excellent travelling & collecting servants; thus greatly diminishing the difficulty & toil of my marches. The Snowy Passes, too, were rather less formidable than I had expected; though I must confess to having been “a gone coon” in the first occasion of mounting to 17,000 ft., when also I underestimated my elevation by 3000 ft.; & it was not , till I had carefully worked out my Barometrical observations, that I felt free from a suspicion that it would never do to cross the Passes. The real & great difficulty, which exists in travelling through the Country I have lately visited, is this, namely, the impossibility of guessing at position, altitude, or even the direction in which you are proceeding; & it is very rarely you see a known height, or object, by which to get a bearing. This requires the constant use of compass, sextant

& a good Watch, which are terrible bores to work out, though the process be simple enough. In this respect, I have found a most kind & helpful friend in W. Müller, who is an accountant to the Calcutta *2 Mint, & has come to Darjeeling for the benefit of his health. I have instructed him in the use of the instruments; & he calculates many of my observations. Generally speaking, I marched from 9, or 10 a.m. to 4, or 6 p.m. -- I preceded the Coolies, & selected a good camping--ground, by water &c, before the things came up. Two thick blankets, sewed together, formed my tent; & with these my expert woodsmen quickly furnished out, in the course of an hour, a little cottage, with a bed place & table. One man always walked with me, to carry my tin Vasculum & a basket for specimens; but really my largest Vasculum held next to nothing at all, of tropical plants; they are so woody & otherwise bulky. When I encamped before dark, I always ticketed my specimens & laid them in paper myself, -- 2 or 3 Lepchas assisted me; but, if the daylight was gone, I was obliged to defer this job to the following day. After my dinner, which was between 6 & 9.p.m. (& occasionally before dinner) I used to write up my journals, label the seeds, & accomplish such work as could be done by candle light. When we camped early, & generally previous to starting the next morning, an hour, or two was devoted to investigate the immediate neighbourhood. Botanizing, during the march is difficult. Sometimes the jungle is so dense that you have enough to do to keep hat & spectacles in company, or it is precipitous, & holding--on forbids collecting, or slippery &c I generally got more plants about the Camp, than while marching. In open places, above 10,000 ft. & thence up to the snow, botanizing becomes easier, nor did I find the precipices so frightful, or the bridges so terrific, as they had been described to me,: certainly one often progresses spread--eagle fashion against the cliff, for some distance, & crosses narrow planks over profound Abysses, with no hand--hold whatever; but as my head never turns giddy there is positively no more danger of falling than on the main road. Whenever there is "overhand" climbing, the holdfasts are secure, so that setting aside the alarming appearance, there are more ifs, buts, maybes, & mights, to being run over in Regent St., than to breaking one’s neck in the passes of the Himalayah; -- always provided the traveller does not become giddy. Some of the scenery surpasses my highest expectations of real grandeur; it is as grand for the Earth as the Antarctic Ocean is for

sea, & in both cases, memory fails to record such spectacles with half their truth & sublimity. Of the impracticable nature of this country, I can give no adequate description. It is strange to wander so far over a thinly peopled, often quite uninhabited , district, always confined to a single narrow track, -- the only one, within many miles, & which has been used for ages long prior to any record; & from which, no man would dream of diverging with any expectation of proceeding a hundred yards , either to the right or left. Two questions constantly recur to the mind,-- Who first tracked this narrow, tortuous road? And who knows whether there may not be a better & a shorter? Among the passes, especially, it is impossible to banish the query, -- who could have divined the route, among a wilderness of Snowy Peaks, such as the broad snowy belt presents? It is impossible to go in search of a path; & the idea of scaling any height over which the track does not lie, is utterly forgotten. In the Andes, & Alps, Europeans go, where no human being has previously set foot; & so I expect to have done here, till I saw the general character of the range which put its impracticability beyond all question. Bhotan [Bhutan] & Upper Assam are unfortunately, quite shut to travellers, except the low parts, which are healthy for but 2 months in the year. I do not know what to make of a handsome & very common Tree, which grows at the foot of the Hills; it is lofty with pendulous branches; the foliage is large;-- the lower leaves opposite, the upper ones alternate,; all oblong, obtuse, sessile & at the base. Flowers large, interminal panicles, calyx 5--8 parted, coriaceous, valvate; lobes acute;. Petals as many, while spathulate, reflexed, crisped. Stamens inflected, 2--8 rowed, not very numerous. German Myrtaceous. -- The tree appears certainly a Sonneratia; but I cannot name it, nor even find a name that would be applicable to it.-- March 29th A splendid new Michelia has just been brought to me, with flowers larger than any I have examined, though not so large as the Magnolia’s. Another plant, which has puzzled me, is a most remarkable Cucurbitacea which I think is new. I sent a sketch of it to my father & will thank you to look at it & ask Wallich if he can give me any information. It is very gratifying to find that much notice is taken in India of my success among the mountains & I have been unable to resist the entreaties of the Asiatic Society to publish some little papers, which they have highly praised. Every person has come forward to assist me; & the only return I can make,-- in the shape of extracts from my journal,-- is all they seek. The willingness

to contribute information is always graciously received.-- My desire now is to explore the snows here more completely, & to give a clear idea of this part of the Himalaya; both in itself, & relating, to what information I can obtain from other parts. Hitherto, no one, except Mr. Hodgson, has treated any branch of the natural history of the great chain in a comprehensive view. The Montes Himalayanio have been talked of as if there were no other Himalaya than the North West; & all has been considered as an inextricably confused mass of mountains, from the plains, to Thibet [Tibet], this is by no means the case. Hodgson has lately made the first step, in grouping, both its mountain masses, & river--systems, & thus dividing the Range into sections longitudinally which will, each, form Botanical & other provinces; & as we know more of the vegetation &c of each one, we shall be able to reduce the Botanical Geography of the entire range, to some system, Mr. H[odgson]. has also further adopted the triple division,-- according to elevation,-- of Tropical, Temperate & Arctic;-- & I find the Botanical & Geographical limits of these to coincide.-- Sikkim will form one province, with Kinchin for its culminant Peak & the Teesta river; as its water--shed; & I have ascertained that its vegetation differs most strikingly, from that of either Bhotan, or Nepaul [Nepal], in the range of many of the species. This is peculiarly observable in its coniferous vegetation: we have much fewer species; & they are restricted to far narrower limits:-- Our Tropical Forest is much more extensive & ascends a great deal higher. Here, in Sikkim, there are absolutely 8000ft. without a single Conifer; & the Taxus, which both in the North West & in Bhotan descends to 6000ft. & prevails at 8000ft., is here driven up to 10,000ft.- Pinus longifolea, is extremely scarce & while Deodara, pindrow, excelsa, Smithiana & (wild) Cupressus, are quite absent, we possess, instead, Brunoniana, & a larch,- the latter is rare and local. In Palms we are much richer than Bhotan, or Nepaul,: we boast 8 species, besides a Cycas & Pandanus -- Below 9--10,000 ft. we have no Cruciferae, Ranunculus, Saxifraga or Primula whatsoever. A stupendous forest of Oaks, Magnolias & Lauri, reaches to 10,000ft.; where it is replaced for 2000ft. by Abies Brunoniana, & Webbiana; & above, for 1000ft. comes a Rhododendron

scrub, & above that, dwarf Juniper-- Pepper & Ficus, here ascend to 7500 and 8500 ft.! Telianthera to 9000ft. Cucurbitacea & Asclepiadea to 10,000; & various other instances could be given of extraordinary elevation of Tropical genera, as Calamus & Musa, to 6,500. In the vallies again, I have found Palms (calamus &Licualia?) & Wallichia, growing with Oak, Pine & Cycas. & the India--rubber Fig. Here there is no such thing as open sward, barren Hills, loose woods, or dry banks; all of which prevail at various elevations in Bhotan & Nepaul, where various European Genera, unknown in Sikkim, & extensive pine woods are found at all elevations. I attribute this, mainly, to the more uniform humidity of Sikkim, which follows upon the province being walled in, on all sides by lofty ridges, & having only a single communication by valley, with the plains; & this, the exit of the Teesta, is such a narrow gorge as to be impassable. Still more important, I think is the fact, that the S[outh].E[ast]. Monsoon traverses little of the plains & no hills in its course from the Sea to the Sikkim Himalaya. The same wind is drained by the Khasya, before reaching Bhotan; & it traverses too, a greater surface of dry plains & the Behar Hills, too, before impinging on Nepaul. On the other hand, infinitely more rainfalls in Bhotan & Upper Assam than here; but in the former provinces it descends in plumps, while in Sikkim we have an everlasting drizzle & fog:-- & there also occasional dry blasts prevail, such as we never experience. I have been reading Enmann’s Travels (in my bed) with great pleasure. I feel an extraordinary craving now to visit Siberia & the W[est]. boundary of Chinese Tartary (Soongaria); but perhaps, when I get home, I shall change my mind; or my intensions at any rate, will not be allowed to run away with me. I wrote to W. P Edgeworth, soon after landing in India, but he has never answered my letter; nor have I heard a syllable about him since coming out. Falconer, you know, is going to Moulmein [Mawlamyine]: I look upon his botanical days as over. Thompson is just offered the appointment of deputy Opium examiner at Patna, £1200 a year, with a house & no medical duty -- I send my kind remembrances to Mrs B[entham]., & my compliments to Mr. Crawford, of whom I hear a good deal. Is it not strange, that except Parochetus there is not one Leguminous plant, in this latitude, between 6000 & 10,000ft.? Erythrina & various arborescent species ascend to near 6000ft. Winterbotham is somewhere in the N[orth].West; probably in Western Thibet [one word deleted, illeg.] with one of the Stracheys, he is collecting, I hear, but like Edgeworth, has not replied to a letter I sent him. Tell Wallich that an Irish lady here asks a great deal about him. -- J.D. Hooker --