PAEASNATH 241 
each with multitudes of Httle cross-legged Boodhs. My mind 
was at once carried back to Adam's Peak in Ceylon, and the 
high places of the N. of India, where Boodhism and not 
Hinduism prevails, where the less impure form of Heathen 
worship has taken refuge. Idol worship as it is, it was 
gratifying to find it taking possession of this lovely spot, to 
the exclusion of the abominations of Brahminism, which 
shock the eye as much as the senses. 
The three weeks' leisurely sail down the river had a double ad- 
vantage. He could stop where he would to see things of interest, 
such as the manufacture of rose-water at Ghazipore or the opium 
works at Patna ; and he had time, most grievously needed, 
to write up his notes, journal, and correspondence, though 
the boat, externally very like a floating haystack or thatched 
cottage, internally became too much of a Noah's Ark for his 
liking, what with rats that mounted the table and stared him 
in the face, cockroaches of indomitable courage which ' take 
the crumbs off the side of my plate with the famiharity of Eobin 
Kedbreast, withdrawing but not retreating on my remon- 
strating,' and insects in swarms from mosquito s to the flying 
bug, which is no better than a winged skunk in fetto, not to 
mention centipedes and monstrous spiders, a hand's spread 
across, darting about as if they had seven-leagued boots on 
each of their eight legs. 
For the Kew Museum he was indefatigable in collecting 
vegetable products used in the arts, notably a pair of smelting 
bellows made entirely of leaves, and all the gums and drugs 
procurable, with the Hindu name transliterated, whenever 
possible, in English and Persian characters. With 250 of 
these already in hand he exclaims : 
The number of things still to be got at every market is 
infinite : and I shall go on amassing ; but I have been only 
two months here now, and cannot bargain properly — it also 
takes a great deal of time. 
This was not merely the passion for collecting ; it had a 
very practical bearing, and the view of Hooker's work is incom- 
plete without remembering that the practical appHcations of 
his science were as interesting to him as pure research. And 
