Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries Part 2

"I am doing nothing in botany, but learning Persian, and the use of the theodolite, with nothing but difficulties to look at all around. I begin to feel of such importance, (do not think me conceited in relation to my collections and information on geographical botany,) that I am not overpleased with the idea of facing dangers alone: however I suppose every thing is as usual exaggerated."

_Bamean_: _August 3rd_, 1840.

"Yesterday I crossed the Hindoo-koosh by my former route, and this morning while out, i.e. trout fis.h.i.+ng, was most agreeably interrupted by the post. The fis.h.i.+ng was ended forthwith. Indeed the sun in this country even at elevations of 12,000 feet is very hot, and has excoriated my hands, beautifully white as they were after my sickness, but not before I had caught 3 barbels, evidently different from those of the other side of the range. I caught some trout yesterday evening, it is a most beautiful fish, I was particularly struck with the size of the eye, its prominence, and expressive pupil, in opposition to the sluggishness of the eyes of carps.

"It is strange that Botany has always been the most favoured of the natural sciences, it is strange that in spite of what all do say it is the least advanced of any. How can I reconcile my own splendid opportunities with those of more deserving naturalists in other branches?

and I would willingly share them on the principle of common fairness with others, who I know would turn them to a better account. Oreinus takes the worm greedily; in the Helmund, 11,000 feet above the sea, it is abundant. It is the same species I think as that in the Cabul river; but in the Cabul river, Barbus is the predominant fish: in the Helmund it is the reverse. How can one account for the small elevation at which fish are found in the Himalayan? I cannot imagine it is owing as some think to the relative impetuosity of the rivers, which after all is only an a.s.sumption.

"This Bamean valley is the strangest place imaginable, its barrenness and the variegated colours of the rocks convey the idea of its volcanic origin, and give it a look as if it had come out of the furnace. I cannot make out where the stones so universally found all over the slopes of the mountains, came from, for very generally they seem water-worn. I find no great peculiarity in the flora of this side of the range, except an abundance of odd-looking Chenopodiaceous plants, probably resulting from the saline saturation of the soil. There is a very singular spring on the other side of the range, about 11,000 feet above the sea: the water very clear, with no remarkable taste, but every thing around is covered with a deposit of a highly ferruginous powder. I shall write next from the fossil locality, which is said to be about forty miles from this. I am as stout as ever, but by no means so strong."

_Bamean_: _August 21st_, 1840.

"I am now out of the region of trees, excepting a poplar, of which I will send you a bit, as the same tree grows in much lower places. The want of rings in wood is by no means unusual in tropical vegetation. For the production of rings, some annual check to vegetation is required: their absence is particularly frequent in climbers. The walnut will not be a good instance, because even if you can get it from Java, it is a tree that requires cold, and must consequently be found at considerable alt.i.tudes. Your instances must be taken from subjects that can bear a great range of climate: you have some in the apricot, vine, etc. I will not fail in sending you what you want from Cabul, and also from Peshawur, in which almost the extremes of temperature can be contrasted. I will also get the woods of apricots, cherries, etc., at the highest elevations on my road back, as I hope to pa.s.s through the grand fruit country of Affghanistan. No Jungermannias are obtainable in this part, nor anywhere indeed, except towards the true Himalayas. I do not remember having seen the pomegranate growing at Cabul: the place is too cold for it. I think however, I can get some from Khujjah, where snow lies in winter. I leave for the Provinces early in October, and shall travel 30 miles a day. I want to get to Seharunpore, 15 or 20 days in advance of my time, as I must run up to Mussoorie and fish in the Dhoon. I shall be in Calcutta in all February."

_Cabul_: _September 26th_, 1840.

"I despatch to-morrow the first of the bits of wood, the duplicates will be sent on the 28th or 29th: on this latter day I leave for Peshawur, and right glad am I that the time has come at last. I will send you the same woods from Peshawur, but shall scarcely be able to send you pomegranate from any thing like a cold place.

"On receiving your specimens of vine, the following question occurred to me. If wood is a deposit from the leaves or fibres sent down from the leaves, how is the presence of wood to be accounted for in tendrils, which have no leaves, but yet which are evidently branches? The theory of the formation of wood, which considers it as above, is deemed ingenious, but it will not I think be found to be true. The bark evidently has a great deal to say to the matter.

"I shall be most rejoiced at a remote prospect of again setting to work.

I take no interest now in the vegetation of this country. I hope to be at Loodianah _early_ in November; my present intention is to run up to Simla, thence to Mussoorie, and descend on Seharunpore. If I do this, I shall only leave one point unfinished, and that is the Hindoo-koosh Proper, where however I shall have the advantage of Major Sanders of the Engineers, who will pick up a few plants for me. I wish much to take notes of the vegetation about Simla and Mussoorie, this I can do at a bad season. I shall afterwards be able to compare the Himalayan chain at very distant points."

_Serampore_, -- 1841.

"I will send you to-morrow dissections of Santalum if I can get a small bottle for them: under .5 inch lens you can easily open the pistillum of Santalum having previously removed the perianth: it is a concial body; you must take care to get it out entire, especially at the base, then place it in water, and dissect off the ovula of which there are three or four, as per sketch. I shall not say what I see, as I want to have your original opinion unbia.s.sed, etc.; but whenever you see the tubes with filaments adhering to their apices, pray mark attentively what takes place, both at the point and at the place where the tube leaves the ovulum; your matchless 1/1500 would do the thing. Try iodine with all such, after having examined them in water.

"Should you find any difficulty in dissecting away the ovula, light pressure under gla.s.s will relieve you. I shall be very anxious to know what your opinion is, particularly with regard to the tubes and all adhering filaments; the question now occupying botanists, being this, is the embryo derived directly from the boyau or is it derived from some parts of the ovulum?

"I hope you can understand these sketches."

_Peshawur_: _13th December_, 1839.

"What a shame it is that botanists should know nothing whatever of the formation and structure of wood! They look at a section of a piece of oak, and imagine they have discovered the secret, and write volumes on this imagination, yet they have been told over and over again, that nothing is to be learnt on such subjects without beginning at the commencement, which they are too idle to do. To name an abominable Aster, is among them of much higher importance than to discover the cause of the growth of wood. Medullary rays are most difficult, because they are very often deficient particularly in climbers. I am horridly idle, and yet what can I do without books; yet with regard to books, the more originality we possess, the less we require them? There is nothing to be got here except a few marsh plants coming into flower. One beautiful Chara, which might disclose the secret, had I good gla.s.ses, it is a most graceful pellucid form, an undescribed duckweed, a floating Marchantiaceae. Would that I was settled with a Ross on one hand, and a Strongstein on the other, around my collections with good health and good spirits. Tell ---- I have in view the division of the vegetable kingdom a.n.a.lagous to radiata, they include all the Marchantiaceae, and are, to all intents and purposes, Vegetable Radiata."

_Pushut_, _1st march beyond Kooner_: _January 29th_, 1840.

"This will be a letter of odds and ends, you know I was to return to Jallalabad; well I reached that place, but left the encampment and crossed the river, where an advance road making partly for the Kooner expedition were employed, and having originally determined on going to Kooner, I accompanied them two marches, when they were overtaken by the army, to avoid which, I halted one day, and on the next proceeded onwards by the north bank of the river, thus saving all the fords of this horrid river. I should call it beautiful at any other season. The road was bad, and the last one and a half mile into camp most difficult, the path winding round and over spurs of sharp limestone rocks which must have had abundance of silex in them they were so very hard. At the very worst part, my headman being in front, all of a sudden I heard three shots in quick succession with the usual hallooing, and then I was called on in advance, meeting my headman wounded: he has lost the two fore-fingers of his right hand. All I saw was three men scrambling up the face of the hill, on whom I opened a fire as soon as my guns came up, and had the pleasure of hitting one on the s.h.i.+eld.

"Such a scene ensued! for when there are three or four on such occasions we may reasonably expect thirty or forty, and my object was to get out of the bad road, and so be close to camp. Some of, or rather all, my people became dismayed, I had therefore to cheer, to point my double barrels, and in fact to enact a whole legion. One fellow tried to shoot me but his powder proved faithful, the others were wounded: however they kept in sight, and to make matters worse, in one place within twenty yards, six or seven of my loads were thrown; evening drawing on, and prospects disgusting, when at last having pa.s.sed over one bad part and got down into a ravine, a number of people were seen closing down on us, but my man had run off to camp, and by shouts succeeded in calling five or six _sepahis_, part of the rear-guard, to our relief, and so we escaped bag and baggage, the rascals making off when the red coats appeared. I was sick at heart at the loss of poor Abdool Rozak's fingers: he is an Arab with an English heart, bearing his loss most manfully, and when his fingers were removed expressed anxiety alone about me and my _Sundoogs_ (collections). Well then, where should I have been had I been a.s.sailed as Abdool Rozak was, I should have been unprepared, and if riding, my mare would certainly have jumped into the river beneath. Thomson {0a} said when he left me, G---, you are rash and Abdool Rozak is rash, take care or you will get into trouble. My moving about without a guard was imprudent, and I now return to Jallalabad to get one, or if not successful to wait there until the spring and its floral excitements call me out: what I dislike is danger without any recompense, not a flower is to be had; with excitement it is nothing. I have now had two escapes, one from the buffalo in a.s.sam, and this, which is a greater one, because had not the army been delayed by accident at the ford, it would have been eight or ten miles in advance, and consequently there would have been no rear-guard at hand.

"The country is disturbed, and one can only stir out in the valley itself close to camp, which is the more tantalizing as the mountains are accessible, and covered with forest. Our halt here should put us in possession of much information respecting these forests. As it is, I shall leave probably as wise as I came, except in having ascertained that the change from the well-wooded Himalaya mountains to those of the Hindoo- koosh, without even a shrub five feet high, takes place to the east of this. My employment is surveying and collecting data for ascertaining the heights of the hills around. But wherever I turn, the question suggests itself, what business have I here collecting plants, with so many in Calcutta demanding attention? How I am living! alone, without a table, chair, wine, or spirits, with a miserable beard, and in native clothes! but one thus saves much time; how unfortunate that mine now is not worth saving!

"I have been reading Swainson's volumes in Lardner's Cyclopaedia, in which there is a little to which severe critics may object, but a vast deal more that is beautifully sound. I am quite certain I never appreciated them before. How wonderful that no one before Macleay and Swainson thought that living beings were created on one plan. I have imbibed all the important parts with the hope of bringing them to bear on Botany, which is in a shameful state. One talks of the typical nature of polypetalous or monopetalous plants; another ridicules the idea, because as he wisely says, some polypetalous plants are monopetalous, and vice versa!! he objects, in fact to what const.i.tutes the great value of a character, _its mode of variation_. All Swainson's propositions appear to me philosophical and highly probable, but none of the present generation have eyes young enough to bear such a flood of light as he has thrown upon them. There are faults I acknowledge, but a man who writes for money does not always write for fame; rapid writing and much more rapid publis.h.i.+ng is a vast evil, but one which is too often unavoidable.

I have four or five drawings of fish, one of the spotted carnivorous carp, the most carnivorous type of all except Opsarion, and perhaps a new subgenus; {0b} one of the Sir-i-Chushme and Khyber _Oreinus_, and a Perilamp with two long cirrhi on the upper lip. I intend in my travels now I am alone, to stop at every fertile place. I am ascertaining the limit of the inferior snow in these lat.i.tudes, which I fancy will be 3,500 feet. Is it not curious that here 1,000 feet above Jallalabad we have had no snow, while at Jallalabad there has been abundance. I attribute it to the narrowness of the valley at this place, and to the forest. When I glance at the subject of botanical geography, how astounding appears our ignorance! we have no data, except to determine the mere temperature and amount of rain yet men will persist in the rage for imperfect description of undescribed species, and pay no attention to what is one of the most important agents in preserving things as they are in our planet,--i.e. vegetation. On this point Swainson is less happy than on others when he ascribes such importance to temperature, and points out the fact that countries in the same lat.i.tudes, and having the same temperatures, produce different animals."

_Cabul_, _September 25th_, 1839.

"I am just on the eve of re-entering Cabul from a visit to Bamean, a singular place on the other side of the Hindoo-koosh, celebrated for its idols and caves. It has amply repaid a march of 106 miles and back again. I never saw a more singular place, and never enjoyed myself more: we crossed several high ridges between 11 and 13,000 feet, but so poor is the flora that I have only added 200 species to my catalogue, now amounting to 1200 species instead of 2,400 as I fully expected. But I must say I was as much pleased at the acquisition of a genuine _Salmo_ in the Bamean river (which is a tributary of the Oxus,) as at any thing.

"Unfortunately we were so hurried, that I had only one afternoon and that an unfavourable one, for indulging in my fis.h.i.+ng propensities: the chief fish seems to come very near the English trout, and so far as I can judge, is not found on this side the Himalaya. The other fish of these rivers are a fine Schizothorax or Oreinus, allied to the _Adoee_, a flat- headed Siluroid, a loach, and a small Cyprinus. This is a singular country, quite unlike any thing I have seen, and as distinct from the Himalaya in its vegetation, etc. as can well be imagined. Generally it is very barren, and after travelling over so much of the country I have yet seen only three parts of it decently cultivated. It is reported to be rich in minerals.

"But it will never bear comparison with Hindoostan. It is however capable of much improvement. It consists of a succession of barren valleys, divided from each other by barren ridges, and is generally deficient in the great fertilizer of all things--water. There is scarcely an indigenous tree in the whole country, and generally very few cultivated ones, except about Cabul, although they have poplars and willows well suited to the climate. It has been subjected to so much misrule that the natives have become indifferent to its improvement, (if they ever felt alive to any such interest.) The Zoology is very poor, quite at zero. There is a species of Ibex, an _Ovis_, and a _Capra_, which from the frequency of their heads and horns about sacred places and gateways of towns, must be common; but I have never seen more than a portion of one fresh specimen of the sheep. Furs are brought from the Hindoo-koosh, but are all too mutilated to be of any use, except to a Zoologist with antiquarian eyes: one Jerboa. Hares are rather common in some parts, and about here there is a Lagomys. Of birds there are but few, but as the vegetation is chiefly vernal, these creatures may perhaps be abundant. The game birds are quail, three species of partridge, a huge Ptarmigan? Pterocles of Loodianah. The fauna is richest in Saurian reptiles, and of these one might make a very good collection. I have only seen two snakes, and both are I believe lost."

_Mirzapore_: _April 26th_, 1841.

"Request --- to refrain from abusing compound microscopes. Why should not compound and simple microscopes each have their merits? Valentine, who is a great authority, and an unrivalled dissector, says, the simple lens must be suspended. I only wish I could dissect with a compound microscope: what things might not one get access to. The simple lens is quite useless with opaque objects; it only does for transmitted light.

Now dissections of opaque objects have been too much neglected. How odd it is that all improvements are ridiculed at first.

"I enclose a bit of Sphagnam, a curious moss, with curious incomplete spiral cells in the leaves. I dare say it will bear preservation in Canada balsam. I have received a new microscope, a queer-looking thing, very portable; one object gla.s.s of a quarter inch focus, by Ross; two eye- pieces magnifying linearly 200 to 300 times. I have put it up, but I am not well enough to decide on its merits. Now that I have arranged all my things, I am literally frightened at the work I have to do.

"I am quite annoyed at the idea that German artists make better microscopes than English. I was aware that the lenses were better, but otherwise I imagined that any comparison would be vastly in our favour. I am curious to know the price, and where to apply for one, as your account makes me quite ashamed of mine. Who knows what a fine penetrating power of 1100 may not disclose. I am very much pleased with your idea of anointing cuts with nitrate of silver; this hint I will bear in mind.

"I enclose the first list of fish, No. 2, not that it is of much use.--What nonsense it is to collect without knowledge.

No. Native Name. Family. REMARKS.

1 Kuggur, Siluridae.

2 Soonnee, Cyprinidae, Back greenish, otherwise pearly-white.

3 Dhurra, Cyprinidae, Fins reddish, red spot on opercule, back greenish-brown.

4 Moogullee, " Perilampoid, Diaphanous, silvery, head reddish.

5 Peedur, " " Like the preceding.

6 Moorr, " " Ditto ditto.

7 Bhanghun, " " Ditto ditto.

8 Kundura, " Perilampus, Back greenish, otherwise quite silvery.

9 Pullee, " " Same as 4,5,6,7.

10 Goolla Ciprinidae.

11 Khunnuree, _Percidae_, Chanda of Buchanan, Diaphanous.

12 Sur-ri-rha, Cyprinidae Perilamp, Silvery-green on back.

13 Gundhan, " Perilampoid, Same colours.

14 Mhukk, " " Ditto ditto.

15 Ghurr, " " Ditto ditto.

16 Dhoalee, Ophiocephalus, Colour brown, with usual marks and bars.