The mission to Siam, and Hué the capital of Cochin China in the years 1821-2. From the journal of the late George Finlayson ... With a memoir of the author by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, F.R.S / [George Finlayson].
- George Finlayson
- Date:
- 1826
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The mission to Siam, and Hué the capital of Cochin China in the years 1821-2. From the journal of the late George Finlayson ... With a memoir of the author by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, F.R.S / [George Finlayson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![• • • XVlll ]atter. Cochin China offers to the traveller a most ex- traordinary spectacle; the capital, Hue, is surrounded by fortifications that would do credit to the first fortress in Europe. I have kept a journal of events, and it is of some extent; I hope it will serve to amuse my friends for an idle hour or two. If the public have any curiosity respecting the countries we have lately visited, I should not care to lay it before that awful tribunal, provided, however, that the work would gain me some little credit. In this, however, I should be guided by your opinion, and that of your friends. I have a great horror of appearing before the public, but something not alto- gether uninteresting in the form of a book would be of service to me in this country, where if I get forward, it must be by my own exertions. I should be very happy to hear from you on this subject, if you think it deserves the least consideration. Mr. Crawfurd means to write a book. * * * His opinion of things differs considerably from mine, for I was in fact but a mere spectator. I have discovered some splendid new plants. What would Mr. Brown say to a plant of the Orchideous tribe, an gerides, as far as I have yet discovered, that should have a flowering spike six feet high, covered with up- wards of one hundred flowers, each some inches across*? There is not a more splendid object in vegetable nature; * /Brides. Seapo simplici, foliis a radice arete imbrieatis, dis- tiehis tripedalibus, frondi similibus; foliolis ensiformibus, longissimis : floribus spicatis, alternis punctatis, magnis, speciosis; labello sub- cylindrico, tripartite, lamina inferiore patente, trifida, acuminata integra, laminis superioribus in arcum supra pistillum conniven- tibus. The flowers diffuse the richest fragrance, the petals are waved on the margin, of a fleshy consistence, of a dark yellow colour,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29349321_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
