1 76 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



not the slightest claim to the honour, but accepted its 

 bestowal by him and its ratification by our then 

 greatest botanists, Hooker and Bentham, with 

 amusement. Seedsmen still class it among the 

 hyacinths, saying that they are obliged to have as 

 few separate headings in their catalogues as possible. 

 I append a little picture of Galtonia Candicans to 

 this book as a vignette at the bottom of its last 

 page. 



Mr. Atkinson (1799-1861) had returned with 

 huge oil paintings from Siberia, which he carried 

 in rolls on camel back, sometimes tandem-fashion. 

 His career was strange. He was originally little 

 more than a quick-witted stone-mason's boy, who 

 afterwards rose, and then hearing that a design was 

 to be competed for at St. Petersburg for some 

 memorial, he drew a design, sent it there, and it 

 was selected. He thereupon moved to Russia, and 

 in some mysterious way obtained the confidence of 

 the Czar Nicholas so completely that Atkinson 

 received what was most unusual, if not unprecedented, 

 a free ukase to travel and paint where he would. 

 Possibly the Czar wished for unbiased and inde- 

 pendent evidence as to certain matters in South 

 Siberia, and Atkinson may have acted as a secret 

 agent. He was made much of by persons of the 

 highest rank in Russia, and he was married in the 



o 



Chapel of the British Embassy to an English lady 

 who had resided in one of the great Russian families 

 as their companion. She accompanied him in his 

 great journey. On their arrival in England they 

 were widely received and welcomed. They took 

 a picturesque but ramshackle small house and garden, 



