BOTANICAL GARDEN AT CALCUTTA. 305 



the same effect, have of late years, through the public press, 

 circulated all over India. Several visits to the garden, paid 

 with 'a view to ascertain its true state, have tended to confirm 

 the truth of the statements concerning the Hon. Company's 

 'botanical' establishment at Calcutta. 



On entering the garden the eye is struck with all the gran- 

 deur of an Indian vegetation. As a pleasure-ground, laid out 

 in tolerably good taste, and kept in exemplary order by some 

 hundred and fifty workmen, 1 — a more beautiful spot could 

 hardly be found. But now, — you stop before the nearest tree, 

 and are desirous of ascertaining its name, its properties, its 

 habitat, — you ask, of course, for a catalogue ; — there exists 

 no catalogue' 2 - of the Hon. Company's 'botanical' garden ! ! ! 



To some of the trees are tied little slips of bamboo, marked 

 with Bengallee characters. If you happen to be a Bengallee 

 scholar, you will wonder at what the writer intended to ex- 

 press, and after all you will be not a bit wiser than you would 

 have been, had you never passed an examination in that lan- 

 guage in Writers' Buildings. You send for one of the " ser- 

 dar mallees" (native head gardeners), perhaps the only man 

 upon the establishment who, with no small trouble, is able to 

 decipher his own hand-writing, in which you, with no less 

 trouble, may recognise — a Latin name — written and pronoun- 

 ced in Bengallee ! ! ! The poor native has, at any rate, com- 

 plied with your wish ; if you like, you may go a step farther, 

 — ask for the properties or the habitat of the tree ; — whether 

 the information thus gained is calculated to be of any use, is 

 another consideration. 



Suppose on your way to the gardens you have picked up a 

 weed from the road-side; it is an old friend of yours, you have 

 seen it a thousand times in the jungle, and you think you may 

 now identify it in the ' botanical ' garden. If you happen to 

 see it there, you think perhaps you may, without a catalogue, 

 ascertain its name by referring to the herbarium ; — there is no 

 herbarium in the Covnpanu's ' botanical ' garden. If a man 

 in India breaks a branch from a tree, and wants to know its 

 name, he will be obliged to carry his specimen to Europe, and 

 consult the herbarium of some museum or botanical garden ; 

 strange as this may appear, it is yet a melancholy truth. 



To find out the plan upon which this garden is arranged, 

 amounts next to an impossibility ; it would at least appear so 



1 A by no means astonishing number, considering the vast area ; only 

 their hands might be employed in something better than keeping the weeds 

 out of, and the gravel in, the walks. 



3 Itishardlvneeessaryto observe that Dr. Roxburgh published a catalogue. 

 Vol. III.— No. 30. n. s. 2 i 



