XXXV 
Glasgow , 1820-1 840. 
soldier-botanist Carmichael, of whom he had heard when 
staying with Sir Joseph Banks in 1820 from R. Brown, as 
a man who had visited the all but unknown and inaccessible 
island of Tristan d’Acunha in the South Atlantic, and had 
left no branch of its natural history unexplored. Captain 
Carmichael, then retired, was living in seclusion in a farm of 
his own at Appin, in Argyleshire, devoting his whole energies 
to investigating the cryptogamic flora, especially the Algae 
and Fungi, of his vicinity. Ten years subsequently my father 
published in the ‘ Botanical Miscellany ’ (ii, pp. 1, 258 ; iii, 
p. 23) a very interesting memoir of Carmichael, written by his 
friend, the Rev. Colin Smith, of Inverary, giving a full account 
of his military services, first as a medical officer, and latterly as 
a lieutenant and captain in his regiment, which was actively 
employed under Sir David Baird at the taking of Cape Town. 
The memoir gives long extracts from his journals on the 
botany, zoology, and physical geography of the countries 
around Cape Town and Algoa Bay, and of the islands of 
Mauritius, Bourbon, and Tristan d’Acunha, in respect of 
which one cannot but admire his powers of observation, and 
wonder how under the obstacles and discouragements of 
a soldier’s life in those days he obtained the thorough scientific 
knowledge he displays, of the botany especially, of the several 
countries he visited. Of these latter Tristan d’Acunha was 
virgin soil, and of its natural history little is as yet known 
beyond what he recorded. The occasion of his visiting it was, 
that being at the Cape when orders were sent to take posses- 
sion of it (as an eye over our prisoner Napoleon in St. 
Helena 1 ), he obtained leave to accompany the expedition. 
This enabled him to spend between six and seven months 
in the island, which he devoted to its exploration. The result 
is a paper entitled ‘ Some Account of the Island of Tristan 
d’Acunha, and its Natural Productions 2 / by Captain Dugald 
1 The knowledge of geography possessed by the War Office of those days must 
have been rudimentary. 
2 Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, vol. xii, p. 483. This 
important paper is overlooked in the otherwise very full history of Tristan d’Acunha 
given in The Narrative of the Cruise of the Challenger (vol. i, p. 241). 
