99 



anywhere. It measured forty-three feet round, and in the season 

 produced a great abundance of flowers on racemes over seven feet 

 tall. 



The situation of the garden, a valley surrounded with magnificent 

 forest-clad hills, and the waterfall and picturesque Indian shrine at 

 the further end produced a series of vistas unequalled by any garden 

 in the East. It was of course the greatest, one miaht say the only, 

 attraction in Penang to the traveller, and inspite of its distance from 

 the town was visited by hosts of visitors from all parts of the globe. 

 The King of Siam, on his rare visits to Penang, never failed to drive 

 to the Gardens, and to inspect them under the guidance of Mr. 

 Curtis. . 



But in about 1900, a scheme for converting them into a reservoir 

 to increase the supply of water to Penang town was talked about, and 

 as from that date it was uncertain whether at any minute the work 

 of destruction would not commence, it was not considered worth 

 while to continue planting out valuable or rare trees to be destroyed 

 immediately. But now, after an uncertainty of ten years, it has been 

 decided that the ground is required for a reservoir, and the abandon- 

 ment and destruction of this beautiful garden is practically an 

 accomplished fact. We can only condole with Penang on the loss of 

 its only attraction. 



As the Gardens are so intimately connected with Mr. Curtis, it 

 may not be out of place here to give som.e account of his history. 

 Mr. Charles Curtis was born in 1854 ^tt<^l was employed at Messrs. 

 Veitch's nurseries at Chelsea in 1874. Four years later, he was selec- 

 ted by the firm to go to the East on an important mission in search 

 of plants for cultivation. His first trip was to Mauritius and Mada- 

 gascar, whence he sent home the handsome pitcher plant Nepenthes 

 rnadagascariensis and large quantities of the beautiful Angrcvcuws 

 of that country. After a year he returned to England, and was sent, 

 in 1880, to the Malay Archipelago, where he explored Borneo, 

 Sumatra, Java and the Moluccas and sent home very many grand 

 novelties. The main object of this expedition was to obtain the fine 

 pitcher plant Nepenthes Northiana, only known at that time from a 

 drawing by Miss North. Its actual habitat was unknown till after 

 much search Mr. Curtis rediscovered it in Borneo and successfully 

 introduced it into cultivation. After sending home his collections he 

 went to Pontianak in search of Phaloenopsis violacea, then very rare 

 in England, but after collecting for a month he had a mishap with a 

 boat, and lost all his collections and baggage and narrowly escaped 

 with his life. During his Eastern expeditions he introduced to 

 European Gardens very many ornamental plants and among those 

 associated with his name are Nepenthes CurtisH, Cyprepedium 

 Curtisli, Medevellaa Curtisii, Rhododendron tricolor var Curtisii, the 

 latter being one of the parents of a large series of the superb hybrid 

 Rhododendrons now cultivated in the hot house of European Gar- 

 dens (Hortus Veitchianus). In 1884 he accepted the post of assistant 



