Notes of a tour in the plains of India, the Himala, and Borneo: being extracts from the private letters of Dr. Hooker, written during a government botanical mission to those countries / [Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker].

  • Hooker, Joseph Dalton, 1817-1911.
Date:
1848-1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes of a tour in the plains of India, the Himala, and Borneo: being extracts from the private letters of Dr. Hooker, written during a government botanical mission to those countries / [Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    41 I must have five servants (besides plant-collectors) at wages of from six to fourteen rupees a month, and the third, an old man, who was willing to come for ten, I did not like the look of, and thought I saw some flaws in his character; so, after a great deal of enquiry, I am obliged to wait till I get to Bengal. In the meantime my progress in the language is very slow. In the town I saw a juggler carrying a hooded snake, the Cobra, a beautiful creature, but of rather a sickly yellow colour, which coiled round the man’s neck, and suffered itself to be teased to frenzy. The juggler also swallowed an egg and brought it out by his ear, and performed other tricks, all common in India, but so familiar through early reading, that I cannot help mentioning them now that the reality is witnessed. At the dinner-party to day I had the pleasure to make acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Walter Elliott. Mr. E., son of a late Governor, is, I think, Colonial-Secretary, a very talented man, and fond both of anti¬ quities and zoology. He asked me to breakfast with him the next morning, and gratified me with a sight of many curiosities and objects of antiquity. In the afternoon of Eriday we had to attend upon Lord Dal- housie during a levee, at which all the Madras people, civil and military, made their obeisance. It was held in a magnificent hall or banqueting-room, detached from Government-House, having a good deal the character of the noble Exchange-room in Glasgow. I do not think I have any more about Madras worth relating to you. The little leisure I could spare was devoted to the Agro- Horticultural Society’s Gardens, and to the inspection of Mr. Elliott’s birds and animals. Sir Laurence Peel’s, Garden Reach, Calcutta, Jan. 20th, 1848. Here I am on the banks of the Hoogly at last, with our excel¬ lent friend Wallich’s pet, the H.E.I.C. Botanic Garden, looking me full in the face from the side of the river opposite to where I now am. J. D. H. [The account of this garden and other matters relating to India, will occupy a second portion of these notes.—Ed.]