THE CALCUTTA GAEDEN 285 



the Gardens, out of which he will be turned in a day or two, 

 to return to Europe (his service time having expired) or take 

 military duties, which are disagreeable to a man of his age 

 and long civil servitude. The expenses of the publications 

 are defrayed by the E.I.C. taking 250 copies ; the proceeds 

 of the sale of the remainder he generously puts by, as a fund 

 for the orphan boy : this is very noble ; and every one 

 says so.' 



Of the actual MSS. and drawings on which he was at work 

 Hooker, who lent his help, writes more enthusiastically : * I 

 am perfectly amazed at Griffith's powers. His exertions were 

 all but superhuman and he was a far better artist than I had 

 supposed.' The misfortune was that they were being given to 

 the world as they stood, the drawings beautifully lithographed, 

 but with many flaws in the descriptions and unelucidated by 

 proper notes which the pious editor could have added. 



A full description of the Garden goes to Sir William. 

 McLelland had improved it by clearance of jungle, road cut- 

 ting, and rearrangement ; but without system and judgment, 

 sacrificing noble trees and a thousand fine features without 

 satisfactory result. He failed in his endeavour to turn the 

 Garden into a botanical class book. Though scientifically 

 brilliant, Griffith before him had not the eye of a landscape 

 gardener nor the education of a horticulturist, and the whole 

 establishment had been suffered to get out of order for the 

 last dozen years. ' The Library is in dreadful confusion, just 

 as Wallich left it, and the Herbarium worse.' Still, ' Falconer 

 has, after all, a much easier job than you had at Kew.' 



Later he tells how he had written to his friend Falconer 

 giving his notion of what the Garden should be, and wonder- 

 ing how he took it, as it amounted to the annihilation of all 

 Griffith and McLelland had done. 



This included the laying out of a good river front, the 

 re-plotting of the systematically arranged garden, with pro- 

 vision of shade and shelter from the fierce sun for plants and 

 visitors alike, above all in the thirty acres outside the house, 

 consisting of dried up grass and red gravel paths all askew, 

 where to go out of the house is going out of the frying-pan 



