DAVID DOUGLAS. I 37 



Scotsmen may feel proud to read the names of their country- 

 men who explored and traded in that Columbia River valley 

 long before it passed under the American flag; of Douglas' 

 friends at the Hudson Bay Company's posts there is not one in 

 five whose name does not clearly betray which side of the Tweed 

 he came from. 



Of Douglas' extraordinary death in the Sandwich Islands on 

 1 2th July 1834, a sad account is given by the two missionaries 

 who looked after his body. 



The journal is a record of hardships and privations cheerfully 

 endured in his passionate enthusiasm of collecting ; it is also a 

 record of his immense success as a collector and of the indefatig- 

 able energy he devoted to his task. 



The Royal Horticultural Society are to be congratulated on at 

 last giving us the opportunity of seeing the whole journal in 

 print, but the price might more reasonably have been 6s. than a 

 guinea, and the book a more complete record of Douglas' life 

 than it is. 



Last letter of David Douglas to Sir Wm. Hooker, 6th May 1834. 



"Sandwich Islands, 

 ''6th May 1834. 

 "MV DEAR AND ESTEEMED SiR, 



" I am two letters in your debt; for last autumn at the 

 Columbia River I had the great pleasure to receive, through 

 Dr Meredith Gairdner, a very long letter from you, and the same 

 happiness was conferred on me on the i6th of April, by your 

 last, which was exactly a year old, and in which you mention 

 having addressed me just two months previously. I imagine 

 this last letter must have been sent by Captain Back, or the 

 annual express of the Hudson's Bay Company ; but I had left 

 the sea before the express arrived. 



" My meeting with Dr Gairdner aftbrded me heartfelt satisfac- 

 tion, not only because he is a most accomplished and amiable 

 young gentleman devotedly attached to Natural History, and 

 warmly recommended by you, but also because he told me of 

 your health, and that of your family ; the additions to your 

 herbarium, etc. I endeavoured to show him the attentions to 

 which every friend of yours is justly entitled at my hands, and 

 only regret that our time together was so short, for he is a person 

 whom I highly respect. Mr Tolmie had quitted the Columbia 



