THE CALCUTTA GARDEN 235 
the Gardens, out of which he will be turned in a day or two, 
to return to Europe (his service time having expired) or take 
military duties, which are disagreeable to a man of his age 
and long civil servitude. The expenses of the publications 
are defrayed by the E.I.C. taking 250 copies ; the proceeds 
of the sale of the remainder he generously puts by, as a fund 
for the orphan boy : this is very noble ; and every one 
says so.' 
Of the actual MSS. and drawings on which he was at work 
Hooker, who lent his help, writes more enthusiastically : ' I 
am perfectly amazed at Griffith's powers. His exertions were 
all but superhuman and he was a far better artist than I had 
supposed.' The misfortune was that they were being given to 
the world as they stood, the drawings beautifully lithographed, 
but with many flaws in the descriptions and unelucidated by 
proper notes which the pious editor could have added. 
A full description of the Garden goes to Bir WilHam. 
McLelland had improved it by clearance of jungle, road cut- 
ting, and rearrangement ; but vdthout system and judgment, 
sacrificing noble trees and a thousand fine features without 
satisfactory result. He failed in his endeavour to turn the 
Garden into a botanical class book. Though scientifically 
brilliant, Griffith before him had not the eye of a landscape 
gardener nor the education of a horticulturist, and the whole 
establishment had been suffered to get out of order for the 
last dozen years. ' The Library is in dreadful confusion, just 
as Walhch left it, and the Herbarium worse.' Still, ' Falconer 
has, after all, a much easier job than you had at Kew.' 
Later he tells how he had written to his friend Falconer 
giving his notion of what the Garden should be, and wonder- 
ing how he took it, as it amounted to the annihilation of all 
Griffith and McLelland had done. 
This included the laying out of a good river front, the 
re-plotting of the systematically arranged garden, with pro- 
vision of shade and shelter from the fierce sun for plants and 
visitors alike, above all in the thirty acres outside the house, 
consisting of dried up grass and red gravel paths all askew, 
where to go out of the house is going out of the frying-pan 
