90 KEW, ST. PETEKSBUEG, AND MAROCCO 



In 1871, at the age of fifty-three, he accomplished another 

 of his important botanical travels. This was to the little 

 known country of Marocco, and included the first ascent of 

 the Great Atlas. 



Marocco, indeed, was the China of the West, jealously 

 guarded from foreign eyes lest the discovery of mineral treasures 

 should bring in the hated Christians. Its botany was even more 

 scantily known than its geography ; the Alpine regions of the 

 Great Atlas, untrodden by European foot, probably held the 

 key to important problems of botanical distribution. As 

 in Sikkim, science was spiced with adventure, and here too 

 Hooker's Himalayan experiences enabled him to deal success- 

 fully with suspicious natives, blending firmness with reason, 

 and never suffering the dignity of a party under Imperial 

 authority to be slighted. 



The trip had been planned for some time with George Maw, 

 whose business was pottery and his pleasure gardening and 

 botany, ' the best friend the Garden ever had in many ways:' 

 Hooker knew him for an excellent companion, as well as * a 

 capital plant-hunter and grower, and fair Geologist.' As plans 

 took shape, John Ball * asked to join the party, ' so old a friend 

 and so good a man, that we shall take him with pleasure.* 



The general plan is outlined in the following letter. 



To Charles Darwin 



March 19, 1871. 



I am off for Marocco on the 1st, and shall be glad of any 

 commands from you. I go partly to try and bake out my 



1 John Ball (1818-89), man of science, politician, and Alpine traveller. 

 At Cambridge he came under the influence of Henslow, and on his subsequent 

 travels through Europe, did much botanical work, notably a paper on the 

 botany of Sicily, while also studying Glaciers. He was in Parliament 1852-8, 

 and as Under-Secretary for the Colonies after 1855 was instrumental in seeking 

 out the best route for Trans -Canadian railway communication, and in securing 

 Government support for Sir William Hooker's efforts to publish floras of all 

 our colonies on a definite system, which he himself drew up. 



He was the first president of the Alpine Club (1857), and in his famous 

 Alpine Guide (1863-8) united the scientific and practical points of view. In 

 Marocco and the Great Atlas (1878) he completed the story of this expedition, 

 which Hooker had been compelled to lay aside, and his Spicilegium Florae 

 Maroccanae (1878) was a classical memorial of their joint researches. In 1882 

 he also made a five months' voyage in S. America, described in his Notes of a 

 Naturalist in South America (1887). 



