Jan. 1848. CALCUTTA BOTANIC GARDENS. 3 



have entire freedom to follow my own pursuits ; and the 

 advantages which such a position afforded me, were, I 

 need not say, of no ordinary kind. 



At the Botanic Gardens I received every assistance from 

 Dr. McLelland,* who was very busy, superintending the 

 publication of the botanical papers and drawings of his 

 friend, the late Dr. Griffith, for which native artists were 

 preparing copies on lithographic paper. 



Of the Gardens themselves it is exceedingly difficult to 

 speak; the changes had been so very great, and from a 

 state with which I had no acquaintance. There had been 

 a great want of judgment in the alterations made since 

 Dr. Wallich's time, when they were celebrated as the most 

 beautiful gardens in the east, and were the great object of 

 attraction to strangers and townspeople. I found instead 

 an unsightly wilderness, without shade (the first require- 

 ment of every tropical garden) or other beauties than some 

 isolated grand trees, which had survived the indiscri- 

 minate destruction of the useful and ornamental which had 

 attended the well-meant but ill-judged attempt to render a 

 garden a botanical class-book. It is impossible to praise 

 too highly Dr. Griffith's abilities and acquirements as a 

 botanist, his perseverance and success as a traveller, or his 

 matchless industry in the field and in the closet; and it is 

 not wonderful, that, with so many and varied talents, he 

 should have wanted the eye of a landscape-gardener, or 

 the education of a horticulturist. I should, however, be 

 wanting in my duty to his predecessor, and to his no less 

 illustrious successor, were these remarks withheld, pro- 

 ceeding, as they do, from an unbiassed observer, who had 

 the honour of standing in an equally friendly relation to all 

 parties. Before leaving India, I saw great improvements, 



* Dr. Falconer's locum tenens y then in temporary charge of the establishment. 



b 2 



