To Lady Hooker (Copy) *1
Darjeeling, Apr. 26 1849 *2
My dearest mother,
Another day’s grace being allowed for the English mail, I avail myself of it to write currente calamo to you. I am exceedingly busy & have already closed (yesterday) my letters to my father & Frances & Col. Sabine, so you will not expect that I can give you much news. I am packing a box for the Kew museum: it contains specimens of cloths stuffs &c. with which I hope my Father will be satisfied. No news yet of my servant Clamanze having reached Calcutta *3 with my collections! I cannot but feel anxious.
This minute I have heard from T. Thompson, who seems to be in poor health & bad spirits. His appointment to Patna is gazetted at Calcutta; but the intelligence has not reached him: he has been too unwell to proceed with his Reports at Ferozepore, & is off for 3 months sick leave. His collections have all been dispatched to Calcutta in excellent order. I am sorry to say that Lord Dalhousie has been compelled to refuse Thompson’s application for leave to join me at present, owing to a stringent order from the Court of Directors. As I am convinced that his Lordship would have granted it if he could I am not at all annoyed, though sufficiently disappointed. Thompson’s plan is to continue working at his journals: if health permit, to join his regiment in the Punjaub [Punjab] next Nov[embe]r, & immediately after to take the 6 months’ leave, which he is then entitled to claim., & come to me at once: After which his plan will be regulated by mine. Before he quits India by the May Steamer, he will visit his cousin Sconce, at Chittagong whither I should extremely like to accompany him, via the Cossya & Tiphera, because that country will be perfectly salubrious at the season in question. The report of Prof[esso]r. Thompson’s death alarmed poor Tom dreadfully, & Gardner’s decease

has been quite a blow to him: he writes in wretched spirits & complains of bilious & dyspeptic maladies, which I trust are of no serious importance. I have already begun a letter of consolation to him & will despatch it immediately: He recommends that my Father should provide for the safe transmission to England of Gardener's M.S.S. & collections, & he wished that the superintendence of this business should be confided to me; if so, it must be by the direction of the Colonial Office. It would interfere with Borneo, but I hope that Papa will decide as he judges best, acting on his own responsibility, without regard to my opinion: so far as I am concerned I care comparatively little where I am employed while I am away from England.
I have just been writing an exceedingly long epistle to Humboldt & can really add no more than my love to Bessy, whom you may tell that my dog is growing into a splendid animal.
your most affectionate son, | (signed) J.D.Hooker.