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anywhere. It measured forty-three feet round, and in the season 
produced a great abundance of flowers on racemes over seven feet 
tall. 
The situation of the garden, a valley surrounded with magnificent 
forest-clad hills, and the waterfall and picturesque Indian shrine at 
the further end produced a series of vistas unequalled by any garden 
in the East. It was of course the greatest, one might say the only, 
attraction in Penang to the traveller, and inspite of its distance from 
the town was visited by hosts of visitors from all parts of the globe. 
The King of Siam, on his rare visits to Penang, never failed to drive 
to the Gardens, and to inspect them under the guidance of Mr. 
Curtis. 
But in about 1900, a scheme for converting them into a reservoir 
to increase the supply of water to Penang town was talked about, and 
as from that date it was uncertain whether at any minute the work 
of destruction would not commence, it was not considered worth 
while to continue planting out valuable or rare trees to be destroyed 
immediately. But now, after an uncertainty of ten years, it has been 
decided that the ground is required for a reservoir, and the abandon- 
ment and destruction of this beautiful garden is practically an 
accomplished fact. We can only condole with Penang on the loss of 
its only attraction. 
As the Gardens are so intimately connected with Mr. Curtis, it 
may not be out of place here to give some account of his history. 
Mr. Charles Curtis was born in 1854 and was employed at Messrs. 
Veitch s nurseries at Chelsea in 1874. Four years later, he was selec- 
ted by the firm to goto the East on an important mission in search 
of plants for cultivation. His first trip was to Mauritius and Mada- 
gascar, whence he sent home the handsome pitcher plant Nepenthes 
madagascariensis and large quantities of the beautiful Angrcecnms 
of that country. After a year he returned to England, and was sent, 
in 1880, to the Malay Archipelago, where he explored Borneo, 
Sumatra, Java and the Moluccas and sent home very many grand 
novelties. The main object of this expedition was to obtain the fine 
pitcher plant Nepenthes Northiana, only known at that time from a 
drawing by Miss North. Its actual habitat was unknown till after 
much search Mr. Curtis rediscovered it in Borneo and successfully 
introduced it into cultivation. After sending home his collections he 
went to Pontianak in search of Phaloenopsis violacea, thefi very rare 
in England, but after collecting for a month he had a mishkp with a 
boat, and lost all his collections and baggage and narrowly escaped 
with his life. During his Eastern expeditions he introduced to 
European Gardens very many ornamental plants and among those 
associated with his name are Nepenthes Curtisii, Cyprepediuni 
, Cnrtisii, Medevellaa Curtisii , Rhododendron tricolor var Curtisii, the 
ji ^ a * ter being one of the parents of a large series of the superb hj^brid 
Rhododendrons now cultivated in the hot house of European Gar- 
dens (Hortus Veitchianus). In 1884 he accepted the post of assistant 
