62 REVIEWS. 



with ; but this is a far from economical plan, for it is difficult to keep the refuse 

 from damp and insects. 



" A powerful smell of opium pervaded these vast buildings, which Dr. Corbett 

 assured me did not affect himself or the assistants. The men work ten hours a 

 day, becoming sleepy in the afternoon ; but this is only natural in the hot season ; 

 they are rather liable to eruptive diseases, possibly engendered by the nature of 

 their occupation. Even the best East Indian opium is inferior to the Turkish, and, 

 owing to the peculiarities of the climate, will, probably, always be so. It never 

 yields more than five per cent, of morphia, whence it3 inferiority, but is as good in 

 other respects, and even richer in narcotive. The care and attention devoted to 

 every department of collecting, testing, manipulating, and packing is quite extra- 

 ordinary ; and the result has been an impulse to the trade beyond what was anti- 

 cipated. The natives have been quick at apprehending and supplying the wants of 

 the market, and now there are more demands for licenses to grow opium than can 

 be granted. All the opium eaten in India is given out with a permit to licensed 

 dealers, and the drug is so adulterated before it reaches the retailers in the bazaars, 

 that it does not contain one twentieth part of the intoxicating power it did when 

 pure." 



"When Dr. Hooker set out to investigate the botany and the physical 

 character of the eastern extremity of the great Himalaya range, Baron 

 Humbolt addressed him a letter on certain objects which it was especially 

 desirable he should keep in view. He there writes — 



" Que je suis heureux d'apprendre que vous allcz penetrer dans ces belles vallees 

 d' l'Himalaya, et meme au-dela, vers Ladak et les Plateux de Thibet, dont la 

 hauteur moyenne, non confondue avec celles des cimes qui s'elevent dans le plateau 

 meme, est un objet digue de recherche." 



And in another passage — 



" Eclaircir lc problemc de la hauteur des neiges perpetuelles a. la pente meridionale 

 et a la pente septentrionale de l'Himalaya, en vous rappelant les donnees que j'ai 

 reunies dans le troiseme volume de mon 'Asie Centrale."* 



We have inserted these extracts, as showing the interest which the veteran 

 Humbolt took in the objects of the mission undertaken by Dr. Hooker. Need 

 we say that the two objects proposed for his observation received such an 

 amount of attention as to ensure their solution. Difficulties of no ordinary 

 character had to be surmounted, arising partly from physical obstacles, 

 which required great labour and patience to overcome, and partly from the 

 jealous bickerings of the Sikkim tribes, who occupied the southern frontier 

 passes ; but the task had been undertaken by no mere adventurer ; Dr. 

 Hooker was a genuine traveller, and no holiday sight-seer, about to 

 write for the million. He had an object in view ; and after twelve months 

 of laborious anxiety, he achieved the object of his ambition, and succeeded 

 in determining the elevation of the great Tibetian table-land, and also 

 solving the second problem indicated by M. de Humbolt — the elevation 

 of the snowline. We deeply regret our inability to follow our tra- 



• Hooker's Journal of Botany, vol. i., p. 337. 



