330 LAST DAYS IN SIKKIM 



of Sikkim, its chief interest being in its botanical geography 

 and the eclat attending the traveller who traversed it from 

 end to end ; as to the latter, ' doubtless its vegetation is richer, 

 though not so novel as that of Nepaul,' for it had been visited 

 several times. (March 18, 1850.) 



But the balance is finally struck with fair contentment 

 (April 27) when a new actinometer and telescope had arrived 

 and been tried. 



I could wish they were going with me to Nepaul instead 

 of the Khasia Mountains ! Still I really believe the latter 

 country is the best in a botanical point of view both for my 

 companion and myself, and it is certainly far the most 

 practicable. 



And the journey justified itself. He writes on August 8th : 



I have here the means of making extraordinary collec- 

 tions : had I remained in Sikkim, the same expedition would 

 have procured no more plants. 



Accordingly in mid-April he returned the weary five-days' 

 journey from Calcutta to Darjiling, to make ready for the 

 start, having 



been so much out and about Calcutta that I am very sick 

 and weary of it. Greater kindness no man could receive 

 than I have, but it is a killing sort of kindness that requires 

 the compression into fourteen days of the good feeling of all 

 Calcutta, 



of which he says in a ' sadly idle gossiping letter ' of April 6 

 to his mother : 



On the whole the society is more entirely agreeable than 

 any I have ever mixed in. There is very little personal 

 feeling shown, and there is much more real friendliness and 

 kindness amongst the people than in your starched circles 

 at Kew, where one feels far more patronized than shown 

 attention to for your own sake, or from any desire of 

 cultivating an acquaintance. Hospitality is here literally 

 a ruling passion, and I am sure that I know twenty houses 



