THIRTY- FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 1$$ 



cultivating melons, cucumbers, turnips, carrots, cabbages, 

 egg-plant-apples, and different other culinary vegetables. If, 

 however, the gardener does not keep a watch over this 

 moveable property, he may perhaps find, that during the 

 night, the garden itself has been cut from its fastenings and 

 removed ; and as, in these cases, the thief joins the stolen 

 mass to a similar one of his own (thus completely altering 

 its shape, postion, &c. ) it is rarely possible to identify the 

 garden, or, discover the perpetrator of the robbery. 



During my stay at Cashmere, I did not neglect any 

 opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of its botanical 

 treasures, or, of collecting such plants as appeared likely 

 to be of any service for medicinal purposes ; I thus gathered 

 a considerable herbarium vivum : The drawings of those 

 which I considered as most valuable in medical botany, may 

 be seen in the second volume, and their properties and 

 effects ( as far as I was able to discover ) are also detailed 

 in the pages of that volume. Besides the Flora Medica 

 Cashmereana, there are also descriptions of other plants, 

 which I collected in the plains of the Punjab, the virtues of 

 which I tested, and now communicate. Many of them are, 

 probably, already known to European physicians, but, as I 

 have written not for Europe alone, but also for the East, 

 I have introduced them, because many of the Indian physi- 

 cians are not thoroughly acquainted with them — not even 

 with their forms or properties. It would have been easy 

 for me to have doubled or tripled the number, had the limits 

 of this work permitted. 



Many of my readers may possibly question the utility 

 of these descriptions, on the ground, that, even supposing 

 the efificacy of the plants to be established, and their utili- 

 ty in medicine practically and successfully proved, the know- 

 ledge of them cannot be of any service to European phy- 

 sicians, as they will not be able to procure supplies. This, 

 however, is not the case ; for, although their principal 

 use may be in India, the shawl merchants of Cashmere, who 

 are in constant communication witti France and England, 

 would willingly forward whatever might he required, to 



