234 THE VOYAGE TO INDIA 



I really believe he would be not only mortified, but hurt, if 

 I resided elsewhere than under his roof while I am at Calcutta. 

 On one occasion he turned out of his own chamber to give 

 it to me, because I returned from Sir Lawrence Peel's house 

 a day earlier than was expected. 



The only drawback to their great kindness was that, though 

 he had entire freedom to follow his own pursuits, Government 

 House was five miles away from his work at the Botanic Gardens, 

 ' and to walk there in this part of Bengal is quite out of the 

 question.' 



Sir Lawrence Peel's house on Garden Reach was the Chats- 

 worth of India, with its unrivalled gardens just across the river 

 from the Botanic Garden, classical ground to the naturalist, 

 where Hooker spent most of his time with McLelland, the 

 indefatigable locum tenens for Hugh Falconer, then on his 

 way to succeed Griffith, 1 a botanist distinguished alike as 

 draughtsman and collector. 



As we see more of one another he opens out ; and I think 

 it not difficult to understand him. He is a persevering 

 Scotchman, without much ability, or powers of perception ; 

 blinded by Griffith's extraordinary ability, and impressed 

 with the belief that it is better to fail in following Griffith's 

 views and course, than to succeed in any other more suited 

 to his own powers. He has, he considers, a pious duty to 

 perform, imposed on him at Griffith's dying hour, to publish 

 his MSS. and drawings. This he has been doing with great 

 zeal and perseverance, on a wretched salary of 500 a year at 



1 William Griffith (1810-45), a pupil of fLindley, entered the medical 

 service of the East India Company, and in 1835 was employed to report on the 

 suitability of Assam for tea planting. His botanical travels took him through 

 Assam and Burmah and the Khasia mountains : as surgeon he accompanied 

 an embassy to Bhutan, and the army which invaded Afghanistan in 1838 and 

 the following years. Appointed to Malacca, he was recalled to Calcutta 

 (1842-4) to take charge of the Botanical Gardens and lecture to the medical 

 students during Wallich's absence : on his return to Malacca he fell ill and 

 died. 



In making his collections he aimed not at species hunting but at giving a 

 general account of the Indian flora on a geographical basis : in his botanical 

 studies he was more of a morphologist than a systematist, and as an accurate 

 and penetrating investigator of plant life, and especially of the problems of re- 

 production, he was expected by competent judges to have taken the highest 

 place as a botanist had he not been cub off at the age of thirty-five. 



