EXTRACTS FROM HIS LETTERS. 



xiii 



" I can only find three kinds of fish in this neighbourhood. I have 

 been making some drawings, and collecting a few plants which 

 continue to be entirely European." 



Peshawur : November \lth t 1839. 



" I hope some day or other to turn out a real traveller. I am now in 

 hopes of becoming a decent surveyor, and before many years have pass- 

 ed a decent meteorologist. I leave the Army here, and shall part with 

 it, particularly Thomson and Durand of the Engineers, with regret. I 

 start in a short time to travel up the Indus with little before me but 

 difficulties, however a la renommee. If I can do something unparallel- 

 ed in the travelling way I shall be content for a year or two at least. 



" I have obtained some few specimens of fossil shells from the 

 shingly beds of the Khyber Pass. They seem to be a Spirifer 

 with a very square base, quite different from the common species of 

 the Bolan Pass, which is like a large cockle, and of which I have 

 one beautiful specimen. How I regret not seeing Bukkur, for with 

 a few days' leisure, a number of fossils might be obtained. The older 

 I grow the less content am I scientifically : would that I had received 

 a mathematical education. I was much interested with some quota- 

 tions from Lyell's Elements in a late Calcutta Courier, especially 

 about the Marine Saurian from the Gallepagos. What further proof 

 can be wanted of the maritime and insular nature of the world 

 during the reigns of the Saurian reptiles ? What more conclusive can 

 be expected about the appearance of new species ? This point would 

 at once be settled if the formation of these islands can be proved not 

 to have been contemporaneous with the Continents. Then the 

 animal nature of chalk ! 



" I am doing nothing in botany, but learning Persian, and the use of 

 the theodolite, with nothing but difficulties to look at all around. I 

 begin to feel of such importance, (do not think me conceited in rela- 

 tion to my collections and information on geographical botany,) that 

 I am not overpleased with the idea of facing dangers alone : however 

 I suppose every thing is as usual exaggerated." 



Bamean: August 3rd, 1840. 

 " Yesterday I crossed the Hindoo-koosh by my former route, and 

 this morning while out, i. e. trout fishing, was most agreeably inter- 

 rupted by the post. The fishing was ended forthwith. Indeed the 

 sun in this country even at elevations of 1 2,000 feet is very hot, and 



