161 
Extracts from the Private Letters of Dr. J. D. Hooker, written 
during a Botanical Mission to INDIA. 
Continued from p. 136. 
CALCUTTA TO DARJEELING IN SIKKIM-HIMALAYA. 
March 7.—Left my kind friend Mr. Felle’s house for Amoee, en route 
for Mirzapore, myself mounted on an elephant of the Rajah’s, and my 
goods on Mr. Felle’s camels. Passed through Goorawul, a large 
village twelve miles due west of Shahgung. The road to it lay over a 
very flat monotonous country. Thence turning north, in a direction 
more barren, with noble Mahoua trees and a few Fici, the former 
resembling oaks ; and with the sandstone cropping out on the surface, 
was occasionally much reminded of scenery in the forest of Dean. 
Sterile tracts, with their typical trees, alternate with cultivated fields, 
whose accompaniments are the Tamarind and Mango 
Many of the exposed slabs of sandstone are beautifully waved with 
the ripple-mark, like small specimens seen at Rotas. 
Amoee, where I arrived at nine P.M., was an open grassy flat, about 
twenty miles from the Ganges, along whose course the dust clouds 
were coursing. 
Mr. Monney, the magistrate of Mirzapore, kindly sent a — Um 
messenger to meet me here, the finest-looking fellow I had seen for a 
long time, wearing a brilliant scarlet surtout and white turban. He 
was a very active fellow, equally proud of his master (with good 
reason) and his horse; but he had vast trouble in getting bearers for my 
Palkee, which, after being carted for so long, was now to take its turn 
in carting me. Those he did procure (eight) carried me (for the 
greater part of the way) and the Palkee the whole twenty-two miles in 
eight hours, over very bad and stony paths, and down the ghaut, which 
is, however, an excellent road. 
To the top of the ghaut the country was nearly level (and here called 
the Bind hills). There I saw for the first time the Ganges, rolling 
along the plains, through a forest of green trees, among which the 
white houses, domes, and temples of Mirzapore were scattered in every 
TOLL X 
