Dr. Tuomas THomson’s Scientific Mission to THIBET. 
(Continued from vol. vii. p. 657 of London Journal of Botany.) 
Camp, Bhadarwa, June 2nd, 1848. 
In my last letter (of 1st May) I alian to give you some account 
of my impressions of Kashmir: at the same time I told you that it was 
my intention to proceed towards Jamu for the purpose of sending to 
the plains my last year's collections, and that I would give you a sketch 
of the route which (were I permitted to eontinue my travels) I in- 
tended to pursue. A day or two ago I received information that 
Government had sanctioned my spending another summer in Thibet ; 
and I am now making the best of my way towards Le, with the in- 
tention of penetrating as far to the northward as may be practicable, 
and of returning to Kashmir in September. I look forward to my 
journey with great delight, as a great part of my route having never 
been investigated botanically, I trust I am not unreasonably sanguine 
in anticipating much novelty, if not in species, at all events in geogra- 
phical distribution. 
I started from the city of Kashmir on the 2nd of May. My road 
lay up the valley, and as the river is navigable for nearly thirty miles, 
I embarked all my effects in boats, providing at the same time a small 
boat for my own use, when I should find the banks uninteresting or 
unproductive, which from the flatness of the country, and the extreme 
sameness of the vegetation, was the case oftener than I could have 
wished. the immediate neighbourhood of the city of Kashmir, the 
plain is very little above the level of the river, and consequently quite 
swampy. Higher up, however, the width of the extremely low tract is 
more limited ; and the greater part of the plain is occupied by a table 
land thirty or forty feet above the river, and consequently perfectly free 
from wet. This table-land (composed of lacustrine clays and sands) 
is either cultivated or covered with short turfy grass. The prin- 
cipal cultivation, as in the drier parts of the low grounds, was Wheat and 
Barley, with now and then a good deal of oil-seed (Sinapis). In the fields 
of Wheat and Barley, weeds were exceedingly abundant, almost all of 
European families, and many of the species identical with those of 
Europe. There was also a good deal of Saffron cultivated. The 
highest and driest land appeared to be selected for this purpose ; and in 
addition, the fields are divided by trenches into elevated beds between 
four and five feet square. The Saffron was not in flower, but in full 
