160 wight's botanical letters. 



with the intention of sending joii any things that I might 

 find new. But on this, as on many other occasions, I found 

 it easier to resolve than to perform rightly; for although 

 there are a good many new things, yet I could not possibly 

 find time enough to go over the whole a second time to lay 

 them out and number them for transmission. There is a 

 considerable number of drawings also, anions others a good 

 one of Cocciilus macrocarpus. What makes the circumstance 

 more annoying is, that 1 am obliged to leave all my plants 

 and books behind me, without a chance of seeing them for 

 the next six or eight months. I am posted to a regiment now 

 at Bellary, three liundred miles north-west of Madi-as, which 

 corps is under orders to march about the beginning of the 

 year to Palamcottah, near Cape Comorin, a distance of about 

 seven hundred miles, and till we get there, I must do without 

 these excellent companions. In the course of so long a 

 march, I hope to add greatly to my collection, and I think 

 I shall get a host of new things, as the greater part of it is 

 through countries I have not traversed before, or so long ago, 

 that I derived little benefit from them. 



For the purpose of agitating the subject of Botany on this 

 side of India, I have now a paper publishing in a philoso- 

 phical journal lately established here, under the title or ^ 

 review of Royle's work, but in truth presenting a general 

 view of the objects and advantages to be derived from the 

 study of Botany. I have been spoken to (privately) by the 

 Secretary to our Medical Board about undertaking to pi'^' 

 pare a set of outline drawings and dissections of the plants 

 mentioned in Ainslie's Materia Medica, to be lithographed in 

 the same way as our catalogue. I think that in the course of 

 a year or two it will be quite possible to procure and figure 

 all the plants required for the work, and if I see a pros- 

 pect of its being successful, I shall probably undertake 

 it, following the arrangement of our Prodroimis, thereby 

 making it both a medical and botanical work. 



There has within a very recent period been two small wars 

 here, both in countries unknown to Europeans : one, among 



