370 ACCOUNT OF A NEW GENUS OF PLANTS, 



"Bencoolen; lii/i August, 1818. 



" You will lament to hear that we have lost Dr. Arnold : 

 he fell a sacrifice to his exertions on my first tour into 

 the interior, and died of fever about a fortnight ago. 

 202] " It is impossible I can do justice to his memory by 

 any feeble encomiums I may pass on his character ; he was 

 in everything what he should have been, devoted to science 

 and the acquisition of knowledge, and aiming only at use- 

 fulness. 



" I had hoped, instead of the melancholy event I have 

 now to communicate, that we should have been able to send 

 you an account of our many interesting discoveries from 

 the hand of Dr. Arnold. At the period of his death he 

 had not done much ; all was arrangement for extensive 

 acquirement in every branch of natural history. I shall go 

 on with the collections as well as I can, and hereafter 

 communicate with you respecting them, and in the mean 

 time content myself with giving you the best account I can 

 of the largest and most magnificent flower which, as far as 

 we know, has yet been described. Fortunately I have 

 found part of a letter from poor Arnold to some unknown 

 friend, written while he was on board ship, and a short time 

 before his death, from which the folloMdng is an extract. 



" After giving an account of our journey to Passummah, 

 he thus proceeds : 



" ' But here (at Pub Lebbar on the Manna River, two 

 days' journey inland of Manna) I rejoice to tell you I hap- 

 pened to meet with what I consider as the greatest prodigy 

 of the vegetable world. I had ventured some way from 

 the party, when one of the Malay servants came running to 

 me with wonder in his eyes, and said, " Come with me, 

 sir, come ! a flower, very large, beautiful, wonderful !" I 

 immediately went with the man about a hundred yards in 

 the jungle, and he pointed to a flower growing close to the 

 ground under the bushes, which was truly astonishing. 

 My first impulse was to cut it up and carry it to the hut. 

 I therefore seized the Malay's parang (a sort of instrument 



