XXVlll OX ASIATIC HISTORY, 



nor (what is far worse) be able to find accounts of their 

 tried virtues in the writings of Indian physicians ; and 

 (what is worst of all) we shall miss an opportunity, 

 which never again may present itself; for the Pandits 

 themselves have almost wholly forgotten their ancient 

 appellations of particular plants ; and, with all my 

 pains, I have not yet ascertained more than two hund- 

 red QViK. of twice that number, which are named in their 

 medical or poetical compositions. It is much to be 

 deplored, that the illustrious Van Rheede had no ac- 

 quaintance with Sanscrit, which even his three Brah- 

 mens, who composed the short preface engraved in 

 that language, appear to have understood very imper- 

 fectly, and certainly wrote with disgraceful inaccuracy* 

 In all his twelve volumes I recollect only Pnnarnava, 

 in which the i^agari letters are tolerably right ; the 

 Hindu words in Arabian characters are shamefully in- 

 correct ; and the Malabar, I am credibly informed, is 

 as bad as the rest. His delineations, indeed, are in 

 general excellent ; and though Linnaeus himself could 

 net extract from his written descriptions the natural 

 character of every plant in the collection, yet we shall 

 be able, I hope, to describe them all from the life, and 

 to add a confiderable number of new species, if not of 

 new genera, which Rheede, with all his noble exertions 

 Could never procure. Such of our learned members 

 as profess medicine, will, no doubt, cheerfully assist in 

 these researches, either by their own observations, when 

 they have leisure to make any, or by communications 

 from other observers among their acquaintance, who 



may 



