326 LAST DAYS IN SIKKIM 
The Ehododendrons by themselves claimed separate notice. 
The first part of the new book,^ drawn up by his father from 
material sent home by him, had just arrived, following the 
eulogistic reviews, so eulogistic that they aroused Hooker's 
mistrust as well as his curiosity. 
To return to our Ehododendrons : I have further com- 
pleted and copied out all the descriptions ! together with a 
catalogue raisonne of the Indian ones known to me. It took 
me fifteen days' hard work, which I did most grievously 
grudge, and thought worse than my captivity, and assure 
you it needed all the stimulus of seeing, for the first time, 
the Book itself, to keep me on to the weary hackneyed 
Ehododendrons. As to the said book, it is above all notice 
from the like of me. The plate of B. argenteum hkes me 
best ; and that is not I think to be surpassed for drawing, 
perspective, colouring and portraiture, by Bauer's Banksia. 
It is a far grander and better book that even I expected, 
after all its panegyrics ; and I am most heartily obHged to 
you for giving me the lion's share of the honors, which should 
by rights be as much your own as is the Victoria book.- 
And he tells his mother of an appreciation from ' perfect 
strangers ' which he confessed was very gratifying. 
All the Indian world is in love with my Ehododendron 
book, and extracts from my Tonglo journal, which I sent 
to the Asiatic Society Journal, have been praised in all the 
pubhc papers. (August 8, 1849.) 
The map of his travels was another labour to complete. 
I am so busy with my plants that I grudge working at 
the Map, and yet it must he done, whilst the materials and 
references to my note-books are fresh in my mind. 
January 23. 
Hodgson had got a map partly ready to send by this 
mail, but it is so very foul that both Thomson and myself 
1 The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya. (Edited by W. J. Hooker.) 
184&-51, 14 X 7, pp. 30, pi. with descriptive text. Fol. 
2 Description of ' Victoria Regia,'' Lindl., or Great Water Lily, by Sir Wm. 
Hooker, 1837. M. D'Orbigny claims that he was the first to gather specimens 
in 1828 in the Province of Corrientes, in a tributary of the Rio dc la Plata. 
Poeppig called it Euryale Amazonia, 1832, 
