238 JOUENEY TO THE KYMOEE HILLS 
like this to the three months' flood of Midsummer, when 
the country for miles will be under water ? 
The specimens he so arranged as to present a good illus- 
trative Flora of the whole Road, gaining finally ' a knowledge 
of the look of whole botanical regions which, however poor in 
species, are highly instructive in other points.' From before 
daylight every day, he was hard at work ; but the fatiguing 
lack of a collector had its compensations. 
My specimens are well dried ; this is no difficulty, with a 
little trouble, at this season : three changings drying the 
majority : the difficulty is to prevent their drying too fast, 
yet, would you believe it ? Wallich's and Griffith's plant 
driers were in the habit of pressing once in paper, and then 
spreading all out in the sun : no wonder theii' specimens are 
so contortuplicate. 
Detailed letters home were deferred, but he kept a full journal, 
corresponded with the Governor-General and Mr. Colvile,^ 
President of the Asiatic Society, to which his meteorological 
observations were communicated. Of these the most remark- 
able was on the night of February 14, 
when, on going out at 9 p.m., I saw the finest Aurora, on 
the whole, that I ever witnessed, either N. or S. This is 
a phenomenon supposed to be so rare in or near the 
Tropics, that it kept me up till past midnight observing and 
describing. 
This account met with a good deal of incredulity ; the sceptics 
ascribed it to forest fires, the appearance of which would be 
very different to an observer so long accustomed to the Aurora. 
Grievously as he grudged the time, he wrote an immediate 
1 Sir James William Colvile (1810-SO), an Indian la-x^er and sociologist, 
who, like Sir L. Peel, was knighted on being raised to the Bench in 1848 — he 
was Chief Justice of Bengal from 1855 — r.nd on his Tetnrn to England was 
appointed Indian Assessor to the Judicial Committee of the Pri\y Council. He 
was distinguished for his knowledge of Indian systems of law and of scientific 
and economic questions afiecting India, and was President of the Asiatic Society 
of Bengal. 
