JACK'S LETTERS TO WALLICH, 1819-1821. 1S1 



We .have just had a dissection of a Dugong, a very singular 

 herbivorous Cetaceous animal hitherto very imperfectly known. 

 Some account perhaps would be interesting to Col. Hardwicke, 

 which I shall send you when I have another opportunity. 



Adieu, 

 Yours in Haste, 



William Jack. 



SERIES 3— BENCOOLEN LETTERS. 



No. 9. Bencoolen, 



Aug. 19th, 1819. 

 My dear Wallich, 



At length after all my wanderings here I am at the ultima 

 Thule, and indeed it seems to deserve the appellation well enough, 

 for it is grievously out of the way. Of your letters I have re- 

 ceived those of the 18th Feb., of the 10th of April, of the 27th 

 and a note of the 1-lth June, but several alluded to, particularly 

 per " Tagus," and " Isabella Eobertson " are yet to make their ap- 

 pearance. I have further received from Mr. Halked the writer's 

 labours down to Polygonum, 110 and (mihi gratissima) two vols, 

 of Enc. Botanique 120 for all which, my best thanks. I am most 

 anxious to receive your other dispatches, which I hope will not 

 be long delayed. As the}' seem to be a little irregular in their 

 transit, it might be a good plan, and save also a little valuable ink 

 and paper, to number our letters, by which means it will be easy 

 to know whether they all arrive safely without constant quotation. 

 To commence therefore I mark this No. 9, which appears by my 

 Dak Book 121 to be the number already sent from Penang and 

 Singapore, exclusive of parcels etc. I need not trouble you with 

 much account of my voyage which was long and tedious. We left 

 Singapore on the 28th of June, and two days after got aground 

 on a shoal in the Straits of Ehio, where we were obliged to start 

 all our water overboard before we got off again. This obliged us 

 to run into the Dutch Port of Ehio, and gave me an opportunity 

 of landing and seeing it. It is a paltry miserable place since the 

 Dutch took possession of it. The only new thing I found there 

 was the Hypericum alternifolium, Vahl. 122 From there we pro- 



119. This remark shows that Jack was employing a writer (clerk) 

 under Wallich 's supervision to make for him a copy of Roxburgh's 

 Flora indica. See note 37. 



120. Encyclopedie Metkodique. The botanical part by Lamarck, con- 

 tinued by Poiret, Paris, 1783-1817. 



121. Post despatch book. This is the eighth preserved letter. 



122. Archytcsa Valrfii, Choisy. Wallich distributed specimens of this 

 plant collected by Jack labelled Penang, under his number 1806 : and 

 because the plant is found at Batu Feringhi in the island of Penang, the 

 locality has never been questioned. But we find Jack stating here that 

 A. Vahlii was a new thing to him; and so well did he know his plants that 

 it is impossible to think that he overlooked getting it in Penang if it were 

 so. He got it at Rhio. 



R. A. Soc, No. 73, 1916. 



