TRAVELS 181 



country of Burmah towards Rangoon. All news of him ceased, 

 or rather his assassination was credited by the Government and 

 reported in the newspapers, when in June he re-appeared, ragged 

 and travel stained, in Calcutta. He had explored down the 

 Hookhoom (Hokong) Valley and on to Ava, and had then 

 proceeded more rapidly by river to Rangoon, conveying his 

 collections with danger and difficulty. 



Appointed Surgeon to the embassy about to start for Bhutan, 

 he filled up the intervening two months by again going to the 

 Khasi hills to collect. He then accompanied the expedition to 

 Bhutan, traversing over four hundred miles of the country and 

 returning to Calcutta in June 1838. Here he spent the next few 

 months arranging his collections and also studying the plants 

 of the suburbs. 



In November he joined the army of the Indus and accom- 

 panied it in its whole march. He remained another year in 

 Afghanistan making various expeditions in the country and 

 into the Hindoo Koosh. He returned, after visiting Simla and 

 the Nerbudda, to Calcutta in the middle of 1841. 



Griffith then proceeded to Malacca where he had been ap- 

 pointed Civil Assistant-Surgeon. He remained only a year, 

 but long enough to appreciate the great interest of the district 

 for his botanical work and to complete some important obser- 

 vations. He collected the plants of the province and also 

 visited Mount Ophir. 



Recalled to Calcutta, he took charge of the Botanic Gardens 

 and also lectured to the medical students during Wallich's 

 absence from August 1842 to August 1844, pressing forward 

 reforms in the gardens and using his opportunity for scientific 

 observation. On Wallich's return Griffith remained for some 

 months longer in Calcutta continuing his work, married in 

 September, and returned to Malacca in December full of 

 hopeful plans for scientific work there. He had barely arrived 

 at Malacca and begun work than he was seized with a fatal 

 illness and died on February 9, 1845. 



It has been necessary to consider in some detail the rapid 

 movements of Griffith's life in the East in order to fully ap- 

 preciate the difficulties under which his large amount of scientific 



