214 Biographical Memoir of the late Christian Smith. 



purpose ; for all the fruits of his journey were henceforth de- 

 voted to the new botanic garden, which he regarded as his own. 

 No sooner, therefore, had he landed in England at Yarmouth, 

 and reached London in July 1814, than he set about procuring 

 for the garden a well qualified and experienced gardener, and 

 had the good fortune to find one in the person of a country- 

 man of his own, who had been trained in the excellent institu- 

 tion at Kew. This lucky circumstance had a decided influence 

 on all his later researches, for, after the departure of the gar- 

 dener, he considered the garden as already arranged, and to it 

 all his cares were henceforth directed. Convinced that every 

 thing in Christiana would be carefully attended to, he collected 

 and purchased whatever he considered in the least adapted to 

 it; and all the arrangements of EngUsh gardens acquired 

 double value in his eyes, when any part of them seemed to be 

 applicable to his own. The advanced state of the season, how- 

 ever, did not permit him to remain long in London. In Au- 

 gust he went to Edinburgh, and a few days thereafter to the 

 Highlands of Scotland, to have an opportunity in particular of 

 examining the mosses peculiar to the country. He visited Loch 

 Tay, ascended Ben Lawers, surveyed the celebrated Shehallien, 

 and penetrated as far as Ben Wyvis in Ross-shire, a place but 

 seldom visited. Then he ascended Ben Nevis, the highest 

 mountain in Scotland, saw the venerable naturalist Dr Stuart 

 at Luss, and returned to Edinburgh after an absence of five 

 weeks. The profound knowledge of cryptogamic plants pos- 

 sessed by Dr Taylor, called him from hence to Dubhn. On 

 returning he passed through Carlisle, Cumberland, and Wales ; 

 and, after a short stay by Liverpool and Oxford, arrived in 

 London in the month of December 1814. 



The Congo expedition, after he had fairly resolved to ac- 

 company it, had filled him with the greatest hopes. These ap- 

 peared to be the more confirmed the farther it proceeded. Cap- 

 tain Tuckey was a man of a scientific education, and of great 

 politeness, whose society afforded him both pleasure and in- 

 struction. Willingly would the former have granted him a few 

 days to examine St Jago, one of the Cape Verd Islands, where, 

 on the 9th April 1816, the ship cast anchor for the first time af- 

 ter her departure from England, if his instructions, as well as 



