184 m'ight's botanical letteus. 



will afford me the best opportunities of making good reports 

 on these parts of tlie country. I have no idea how long this 

 office is likely to last; but if it extends to a year or two, 

 I hope to be able to do some good to the country, and not 

 the less from havino; the immediate ear of the cjovernment in 

 place of sending my reports through revenue boards and 

 such like impediments to improvement, by which our system 

 is beset in all directions, and the ears of government kept 

 close to every suggested improvement, that does not come 

 before it with the recommendation of these mar-goods, and 

 many is the good suggestion that is strangled in the passage 

 through these boards, of which the government never hears a 

 syllable. Such are my present hopes and prospects, and 

 God grant they may be crowned with success. 



QuiLON, I4thjune, 1836. 

 In my last letter I mentioned that I bad been called to fill 

 a new appointment. I have since been told that it is a tem- 

 porary one, only to last o?ie year. About the beginning of 

 March, in the course of a tour, I arrived a second time at 

 Courtallum, and remained there ten or fifteen days. In that 

 time I collected many plants, and among them several new 

 ones ; but unfortunately before I had time to visit the best 

 parts of the hills, I was regularly floored by a severe attack 

 of jungle fever, which compelled me to quit the place with- 

 out delay. The circumstances attending it were peculiar. ■ 

 and a party exceeding twenty persons, had been there some 

 time, the weather fine, the climate delightful, and the course 

 of the wind about N., or N.N.E. ; it changed to S.S.E.j or 

 South, and in one night the wliole party were more or less 

 complaining. We remained two or three days unsuspicious 

 of the enemy we had to deal with, and then we were scarcely 

 able to get away, every one of us being attacked. ^^J share 

 was so severe that some of my Palamcottah friends predicted 

 that it would be my last attack; I hope they may prove true 

 prophets. A good constitution, however, and judicious 

 treatment, soon enabled me to subdue the enemy; not so the 



