SIKKIM AGAIN 471 



I enjoy your account of the Bhododendrons and fancy I 

 can smell the bruised leaf of the little B. anihopogon, which 

 you allude to, and which is the only species of the Himalayan 

 that stretches away north into the Altai. 



I am sorry that my likeness is no longer in the Changa- 

 chelling portrait gallery. 1 



Your investigation of the little Sikkim lakes will be 

 very interesting. They are entirely different from those of 

 Eastern Nepal which I visited. That of Catsuperri is especi- 

 ally anomalous. I shall never forget the weirdness of itself 

 and its surroundings. You are I expect right in attributing 

 its existence to silt and landslips. It would be worth while 

 to have it surveyed and the depth of the soil all round 

 ascertained, as well as that of the water at various points. 

 I quite forget at what distance behind it the land rises. 

 I think it is too thickly clothed with forest to the water's 

 edge to see what is behind it. 



Have you met the Eajah yet ? I had him here for a 

 day [when Kumar], and was charmed with his appearance, 

 manners and conversation. An excellent photograph of 

 him, which he gave me, hangs in Lady Hooker's boudoir. 



Do you know Mr. Charles E. Simmonds ? a gentleman who 

 called on me last year with magnificent specimens of copper 

 ore and plumbago from spots which I indicated in my Journal, 

 and where he has opened mines, under a concession from the 

 Kajah, as he now writes to me. 2 



P.S. Should you be in Sikkim in the seeding time of the 

 Ehododendrons and could send me seeds of any, I should 

 be much obliged. They should be shaken out of the pods, 

 enclosed in paper capsules (I enclose a sample) half full 

 is enough and despatched without delay by post to my 

 address. 



In the earlier part of 1910 Hooker was at Sidmouth escap- 

 ing the cold winds of spring, a place whose only drawback in 

 Hooker's eyes was the absence of ships, their course up and 

 down Channel being far out of sight. In his unfailing birthday 

 letter to Mrs. Paisley, he tells her how from here one day some 



1 See i. 280. 



2 Besides this rediscovery, Mr. Simmonds found in Sikkim a living memory 

 of Hooker's visit fifty -nine years before. (See the illustration, i. 272.) 



