Falconer and his Labours i/i India 341 



tortoise now living in the neighbourhood, and that if he met with 

 a gigantic carapace, sucli as that now in the British Museum, he 

 could not help ascribing it to a giant individual of the same kind. 

 In that case the mythological account would certainly spring from 

 the occurrence of the fossil, and in no case could be taken as proof 

 of the existence of the reptile at the time that our Aryan fathers 

 dwelt in India. The evidence which he adduces in favour of the 

 extinct Indian hippopotamus having lived to be a contemporary 

 with man is of a totally different character. 



" I was informed," he writes in a note by Rajah Radhakanta Dera, the 

 eminent Indian scholar and author of the Sanscrit Encyclopedea, " that the 

 hippopotamus of India is referred to under different names of great antiquity, 

 significant of Jala Hasti, 'water elephants,' or living in the water. This infer- 

 ence is confirmed by the opinion of Henry Colebrooke, and H. H. Wilson." 

 — (Vol. ii., p. I So.) , 



While Dr Falconer was making these remarkable discoveries, he 

 did not neglect his duties as superintendent of the Botanic Garden 

 at Suharunpoor. He undertook many scientific expeditions, and 

 brought back enormous quantities of rare plants. But the most 

 important service that he rendered to India was the share he took 

 in the introduction and cultivation of tea into the Bengal Presi- 

 dency. In 1834 he drew up an elaborate report for the Committee 

 on Tea Culture, in which he stated his belief, " first, that the tea 

 plant may be successfully planted in India ; secondly, that in the 

 Himmalayahs, near the parallel of 30, it may be cultivated with 

 great success, and that the most favourable ground for a trial is a 

 tract on the outer ridges, extending from 3000 feet above the 

 sea, or the points where the cold winds cease, up to the limits 

 of winter snow." '■' The merit of the original suggestion to the 

 government, that the tea plant might be successfully cultivated in 

 the Himmalayahs, is due to Dr Royle, who preceded Dr Falconer 

 at Suharunpoor. He made it the subject of a special report in 

 i82 7,t and brought it before the notice of the Governor-General, 

 Lord William Bentinck, in 183 1.| In 1833 he pointed out 

 the locality in which it might be grown in the Himmalayahs. 

 " There is considerable prospect of success in the cultivation of 

 the tea plant, for the different elevations allow of almost every 

 variety of climate being selected, and the geographical distribution 



* Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, vol. iii. , p. 17S. 



•f Royle on the Productive Resources of India. Lond. 1840, p. 258. 



X Journ. As. Soc, Calcutta, Feb. 1832. 



