Transcript
Dear H.*1
I give this to the [word illeg] who go home by a warm route & may arrive before me. I am obliged to send them this way as they have no warm clothing cannot do with less than 4 coolies who I have not to spare & the road I go by (Yangma, Yalloong etc) is described as so bad that their men who could not stand the Wallanchoon certainly cannot this. I take Havildar & 1 sepoy; 1 man for tent; 1 food & cooking; 1 porter for plants; 1 bedding & clothing. All are trying to deter me from this route, but you know I must try it. I have great difficulty in getting [word illeg] for 10 days & no more is to be had until 2 stages beyond Jongri.
Dear H.*1
I give this to the [word illeg] who go home by a warm route & may arrive before me. I am obliged to send them this way as they have no warm clothing cannot do with less than 4 coolies who I have not to spare & the road I go by (Yangma, Yalloong etc) is described as so bad that their men who could not stand the Wallanchoon certainly cannot this. I take Havildar & 1 sepoy; 1 man for tent; 1 food & cooking; 1 porter for plants; 1 bedding & clothing. All are trying to deter me from this route, but you know I must try it. I have great difficulty in getting [word illeg] for 10 days & no more is to be had until 2 stages beyond Jongri.
The [word illeg] *2 have all means for shooting & collecting more clothes I cannot spare as I have divided with the Sepoys & Lepchas & have only one suit for self. The men[?] of [word illeg] are growling & I am quite distracted with domestic affairs & the lies of these Bhoteas [Bhutias] who care no more for the Rajah of Nepal than they do for me.
I have a long letter on the stocks for you. & for Campbell* 3 but I cannot possibly finish it & send it. My route is that Campbell knows from Yalloong Yangma to Jongri [Zongri]. They say now it is 4 days to Yangma & is snowed over. I do not believe it. They first said 1 day & road good.
*4| Ever yr affectionate| JosDHooker
Please [word illeg] C send this to Campbell. I cannot write more.
Wallanchoon pass about 14,000 heavily snowed for 4 miles in some places up to our shoulders but quite practicable. I have been unwell in bowels & head for four days & anxiety so that I could hardly crawl to the top & except my bar[ometer] on my back had no instruments as the bag carrier could not get up. Havildar would not consent to my crossing & I could never have got coolies over. Nothing seen China ward
*5 but Mts. there are 3 other ranges before the maidan plain & as many journies[?] It is a good ?6 to the top of the pass. P.J at 12500 13000 is shape of a glacier- plants at 13 500 & this years snow at 11000 these are only guesses as I have no barometric formulae very dry & barren here.
B H. Hodgson
Wallanchoon
Nov 28 1848*6
*7 your men all have behaved extremely well. I have 50 times forgotten to tell you that you will find a box of good cigars on top of the wardrobe. I am very sorry I have forgotten to tell you this before leaving & in every letter since, though I have remembered it at 100 other times.*8 I send a fragment of my journal beginning 4 or 5 miles below this & going up towards the pass which I will give better details of soon if we do not meet before. B H. Wallanchoon Nov 28 1848*9
1 Brian Houghton Hodgson (1801—1894). A pioneer naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British civil servant. Joseph Hooker stayed at Hodgson’s house in Darjeeling periodically during his expedition to India and the Himalayas, 1847--1851, and named one of his sons after him. They remained lifelong friends.
2 This illegible word appears to be the same as that which occurs in the first line of this letter.
3 Dr Archibald Campbell or Dr Arthur Campbell (1805--1874). First superintendent of Darjeeling, India under British rule, an East India Company representative. Former assistant to Brian Hodgson during his time as British Resident in Kathmandu and a great friend of Joseph Hooker. Hooker & Campbell travelled together in Sikkim in 1849 and both were briefly imprisoned by the Rajah of Sikkim. His first name has been subject to debate.
4 The letter here continues on a separate folio JDH_1_12_54_001
5 The letter here continues on a separate folio JDH_1_12_54_002
6 The address and date are written on a part of the folio that has been folded over, so appears upside down at the foot.
7 The letter here continues on a separate folio JDH_1_12_55_001
8 Two vertical lines appear in left-hand margin of this paragraph.
9 This address is written on the reverse of the folio.
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