THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT, ESQ. 39 



ficial change of president might take place, no tenderness of 

 feeling towards me ought to influence them ; and that whether 

 I continued my office of president, or became an ordinary 

 member of the Society, my best exertions should never be want- 

 ing to support its prosperity. I was much cheered, and I 

 believe the wish that I should continue my office is generally 

 entertained by the Society ; so I suppose I am likely to continue 

 P. H. S. 



" We have just received from the North-west coast of America 

 from one of our collectors, named Douglas, a large collection 

 of seeds of plants, amongst them some of a new species of rasp- 

 berry, of much merit, of which I had before heard ; and of a 

 most beautiful plant of the genus Gualteria, which is allied to 

 the Vacciniums, but bears a very close resemblance to an 

 Arbutus, and flourishes in the deepest shade, even that of a dense 

 pine-forest ; and is perfectly hardy. Its fruit is also sweet and 

 palatable, and Mr. Douglas told me that he had lived wholly upon 

 it for three days and a half ; but as a shrub it is thought a great 

 acquisition indeed. I shall bring down some seeds of it, and I 

 hope to raise many plants, some for you. 



" Our collector proposes, when he has sent all he can home 

 by a ship, to march across the continent of America to the 

 country of the United States on this side, and to collect what 

 plants and seeds he can in his journey ; but it is but too pro- 

 bable that he will perish in the attempt. Mr. Sabine says, that 

 if he escapes, he will soon perish in some other hardy enter- 

 prise or other*. It is really lamentable that so fine a fellow 

 should be sacrificed. He is the shyest being almost that I ever 

 saw ; and upon my requesting, the year before the last, to ask 

 him some questions respecting a part of America through which 

 he had travelled, Mr. Sabine said ' Now Douglas will be terribly 

 frightened ;' and so, with all his daring personal courage as to 



* This prophecy was unhappily fulfilled only a few years afterwards by the 

 deatk of Mr. Douglas, who, while exploring the mountains in the interior of 

 Owhree, one of the Sandwich Islands, fell into a pit constructed for taking wild 

 cattle, and was gored to death by a bull, which had previously been captured. 



