[March, 
158 Analyses of Books. 
medicine without which even the natives find the maintenance 
of health difficult in certain districts. All these hopes, we may 
say, have been fully realised. 
On the other hand, the difficulties to be encountered were most 
serious : young seedling trees had to be sought and dug up in 
the midst of trackless and often pestilential forest regions, and 
conveyed for hundreds of miles to a sea-port for embarkation. 
The jealous and ignorant natives looked upon the enterprise 
with decided hostility, and the tree-hunters were in considerable 
danger. One Manuel Marten threatened to stir up the people 
to seize them and cut off their feet ! The youngtrees had next 
to be placed in Wardian cases for embarkation, and conveyed to 
their destiny. Mismanagement in high quarters was not wanting. 
It might naturally have been expedted that our Government 
would have had vessels ready to convey the precious plants 
diredtly across the Pacific to India. This rational step was not 
taken. H.M. steamer Vixen was allowed to be idle at Islay 
whilst the plants were shipped for Panama, conveyed across the 
isthmus, shipped again for England, and despatched thence to 
India via the Red Sea, being thus exposed to the greatest possible 
vicissitudes of climate. On leaching India the difficulties were 
far from being at an end. It was necessary to seledt localities 
for the intended plantations resembling their native regions as 
closely as possible in latitude, altitude, temperature, rainfall, 
soil, &c. With care and patience the task was accomplished, 
and the result may be summed up by saying that every valuable 
species of Chinchona known in South America has been intro- 
duced into India. 
The original objedt was to bring a cheap febrifuge within the 
reach of the mass of the people. This has not merely been 
effected, but the enterprise has proved a most profitable public 
work. The sums expended have been repaid with interest, a 
large annual profit to the State has been realised, a valuable 
produdt has been established in India and Ceylon, and a new 
and important supply of bark for the European market has been 
created. India now stands second in quantity among the bark- 
exporting regions of the globe, and in quality it is the most im- 
portant of all. Samples from the Nilgin plantations have 
fetched 15s. 8d. per lb., the highest price ever obtained. 
It must never be forgotten that this brilliant success, like most 
British triumphs either in peace or war, has been earned not by 
the forethought or the organising capacity of Government, but 
by the energy, the tadt, and the devotion of individuals. How 
have these individuals been rewarded ? 
Among the most adtive of Mr. Markham’s coadjutors was the 
eminent botanist Dr. Spruce, to whom fell the task of colledting 
the plants and seeds of the tl succirubra ” species, which now 
yields an annual income of many thousands. He returned to 
England in 1864, an invalid for life, and incapacitated from fol- 
