•208 JACK'S LETTEKS TO WALLICH, 1819-1821. 



resources whatever they may be. It would be too long to give you 

 here a detail of all he has done, and all he is doing, suffice it to 

 say the very aspect of the place is changed, and in spite of all its 

 natural disadvantages, there are good hopes of its rising. Natives 

 .and Europeans all seem to awake to the new impulse they receive, 

 and I really think the former more readily and fully than the latter. 

 It is hardly possible to conceive the apathy and vis inertia' of the 

 Europeans who have been trained up and imbibed the spirit of 

 the old school of this place. 



The last twenty years of Bencoolen have been its age of Gothic 

 darkness. It was far better before in the time of its old govern- 

 ment, but lias declined ever since it fell under Bengal. Nunc 

 redit ad pristinam dignitatem, yea, it revives in more than pristine 

 splendour. 



I have just concluded the second and longest part of the Zoo- 

 logical Paper — The Birds. 212 The remainder will not lie given so 

 much in detail, and will I hope be soon finished; then for Botany 

 anew. It has been almost suspended by these and other occupa- 

 tions. I have got numbers of the great flowers 213 and have at 

 length satisfied myself upon every point, and have corrected many 

 of the first ideas of it. I mean to send you a few specimens. 

 How to send it living is more puzzling. I find it is parasitic on 

 a species of Cissus with quinate and ternate leaves, which I cannot 

 ascertain as yet 214 for want of Boxb. — these leaves are serrate and 

 smooth. From the stems of this woody Cissus which run either 

 on, or under the ground, spring these gigantic flowers. At first a 

 round knob, enveloped in a number of calycine or bracteal leaves, 

 which open as the flower enlarges, and mostly drop off as it gets 

 ripe. The flowers are unisexual? ergo Dioieous. The male has 

 the globular anthers disposed round the margin of the central 

 column, as I have already described. The female wants them, but 

 is otherwise similar : and the centre of the column is occupied by 

 the minute seeds which are not exactly nidulant but disposed on 

 the surfaces of a number of fissures, which traverse the substance 

 of the column without any order or regularity. "We get them [the 

 flowers] in numbers from all parts of the country, so that they do 

 not appear to be rare. Strange that they never before should have 

 been heard of. They are called by the natives Pelinum Sekuddi, 

 or the devil's siribox, or as you would call it in Bengal Paun box. 

 I like the name — Poculum Jovis preoc : dub : 



I had a story to tell you of the Frenchmen, but will let it 

 alone just now. Here break we off at that unhallowed name like 

 bards of old when words ill omened came. 



Believe me my dear Wallieh, thine in saecula saeculorum. 



William Jack. 



212. Ecr'ting of the work of Diard and Duvaucel. 



213. Eafflesia Arnoldi, E. Br. 



214. Vitis angusti folia, Wall. (Cissus angustifolia, Eoxb.), according 

 to Jack in the Malayan Miscellanies. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



