xviii A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
and drawings belonging to this period are carefully preserved in the library of the 
Asiatic Society of Bengal. 7 : | 
In the end of 1805, when Lord Wellesley retirel, Buchanan accompanied him to 
England. His habit of observing natural phenomena, we learn incidentally, was 
exercised as usual during this voyage. During his stay in England Buchanan was 
able to prepare the excellent index which accompanies his work on Mysore, with the 
object of enabling readers to understand the Indian terms employed in the journal 
and in order to compensate, to some extent, for the absence of methol in tho arrango- 
ment of the work. 
| During this visit Buchanan renewed his old intimate intercourse with Smith. 
One result of this renewal of their companionship was that Buchanan gave Smith all 
his Nepal specimens, a gift that was subsequently to be far from beneficial to Buchanan. 
Smith refers to the transaction as follows':—. | 
“ Му excellent friend and fellow-student Dr. Francis Buchanan having most generously put me 
in possession of all his drawings of Indian plants, together with his manuscripts and an herbarium 
of about 1,500 species collected in his journey to Nepal, I hasten to communicate soms of these 
rarities to the public.” 
Another result was that Smith took up some of the ‘Perthshire specimens collected 
by Buchanan in their student-days, and dascribed them. Regarding one of these 
Scottish plants Smith writes?:— | 
“These specimens were collected by Dr. Francis. Buchanan in 1782 at Lony near Sterling, his 
native place, The glen of Leny has recently been celebrated in the beautiful poetry of Mr. Walter Scott, 
and from these romantic and sequestered scenes a long residence in various parts of India has neither 
perverted the taste nor weaned the heart of our friend." 
During this visit to England Buchanan joined, оп 1st May 1806, the Royal 
Society of London. f 
It appears that Buchanan’s official Nepal journal, and many of the drawings 
executed at Barrackpur, reached the Court of Directors during the course of this visit 
to England. The Court were во impressed .by the excellence of Buchanan’s work in 
Ava, Chittagong, Mysore, Nepal, and at Barrackpur that they nominated him successor 
to Roxburgh as Superintendent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden when Roxburgh should 
retire, and decided that in the interval his peculiar ability as a statistical surveyor 
should be utilized in making a survey of the territories forming the Presideacy of , 
Fort William. 
4. SERVICE IN INDIA, 1806-1815, 
Survey or BENGAL. 
Towards the end of 1806 Buchanan sailed again for India, reaching Calcutta 
early in 1807. The instructions from the Court of Directors with reference to his 
future employment were issued on Tth January 1807. Тһе Court in their despatch 
observe :— 
" We are of opinion that a statistical survey of the eountry 
your presidency would be attended with much utility ; 
taken for carrying the same into execution." 
under the immediate authority óf 
we therefore recommend proper steps to be 
! Edinb. Philosoph, Journ., vol. v, 1821. 
* Exotie Botany, ii., р. 73, t. 67 : 1805. 
š English Botany, xxiii., t. 1520. 1306, 
