TO CASHMEER AND LITTLE TIBET. 



575 



reception whicli lie has given to English travellers who have 

 visited him. The treatment which I met with was marked 

 by every attention, but tempered with some cautious jealousy 

 in preventing my intercourse with such foreign residents at 

 Iskardoh as could give me information about the country. 

 Iskardoh will always be open to Europeans while Ahniud 

 Shah lives ; for he is fully alive to the benefits which he has 

 derived from the little intercourse he has had with us, and to 

 the advantages of the reputation which he has, in the neigh- 

 bouring countries, of being an object of interest with the 

 British in India. 



'24. With regard to the results of my journey and the 

 collections formed, I must at present confine myself to a 

 very general statement. In botany, the collection comprises 

 about 3,500 species, with a very numerous series of dupli- 

 cates ; the total number being estimated to amount to 150,000 

 specimens. It consists of the plants met with in. two journies 

 through the Punjab ; of a series of specimens from the banks 

 of the Indus near Attock, from Peshawur, the valley of 

 Bunguish, and the salt range in Afghanistan, from the moun- 

 tains between Attock and Cashmeer, from Cashmeer into 

 Little Tibet, from the Valley of the Indus as high as the 

 confluence of the Shayook and Ladakh Eiver, and from the 

 mountains between Little Tibet and Yarkund. The plants 

 of Cashmeer compose the largest part of the collection, 

 forming a very complete flora of that valley and of the 

 mountains around it. There is, besides, a valuable series of 

 specimens collected by Dr. Lord on the banks of the Oxus, 

 near Koondooz. 



25. The details of the collection will be communicated 

 hereafter as they are worked out. I may at present state 

 that it comprises a large number of new species ; and that, 

 when taken in conjunction with the collections made by Drs. 

 Hamilton and Wallich, and Messrs. Grifiiths and Eoyle, it 

 will complete a nearly connected series of the flora of the 

 Himalayahs from the Indus down to Assam. 



26. With regard to practical results, 653 grafted plants, 

 comprising all the most valuable varieties of fruits found in 

 Cashmeer, were dispatched on three separate occasions to the 

 Botanical Garden at Suharunpoor, where a large portion of 

 them are now in a flourishing condition. The plants which 

 yield Assafoetida ' and Koost,^ articles of considerable com- 



' See ' Description of the Assafoetida 

 Plant of Central Asia,' by H. Ealconer, 

 M.D., in 'Trans. Linnean Soc' vol. xx. 

 p. 285, 1846.— [Ed.] 



" See ' Account of Aucklandia, a new 



genus of Composites, believed to produce 

 the Costus of Dioscorides.' By H. Fal- 

 coner, M.D., in ' Trans. Linnea.n Soc' 

 vol. xix. p. 23. 



