REMINISCENCES OF A VOYAGE TO AND FROM CHINA. 293 
in a precarious state, should be sent on shore, and kept in the garden 
of some friend who understood their management, until they were 
recruited, and an opportunity offered to forward them to England. 
Accordingly the Azaleas, white and red flowering, a semi-double red 
Camellia, one or two Paeonias, &c., were landed, of which a list was 
kept by the gentleman above alluded to. It may be as well to mention 
here, that we never could learn what became of those plants, or whether 
they were ever brought to Europe. 
Of our whole collection, not one-half remained alive on our arrival 
here. This failure, conjoined with the sad news we had just heard 
from England, gave us no small uneasiness; but what added to the 
poignancy of those heartburnings was, what we witnessed of the state 
of the other plants brought thus far in other ships of the fleet. These, 
for the most part selected and packed by ourselves, and in the same 
manner as we had prepared our own, were now, however, in a far 
better condition. Two or three boxes packed for Captain Henry 
Wilson, of the Warley , were in excellent order; many of them had 
scarcely lost a leaf. They were placed on the poop, abaft the skylight, 
exposed to all weathers, and seldom looked at or watered. Those 
packed for Captain Simpson, which stood on the capstan, (and of 
course under the awning of the quarter-deck in bright weather,) were 
also in good order, and but little damaged. Captain Smith, of the 
Minerva, employed us to select a few Paeonias for Sir Joseph Banks, 
which he kept in the stern balcony; they were also, on their arrival 
at St. Helena, in a fair way of reaching England in safety. 
Our reception on shore was here, like what we had experienced at 
many other places in India, of the most flattering description. Mr. 
Porteus, the Governor’s gardener, invited us to his home, near the 
Governor’s country house, on the Table-land of the rock, near its 
centre, and on the very spot, we believe, which was afterwards chosen 
for the domicile of the Emperor Napoleon. To the Governor’s house 
was a garden partly walled, on the plan of an English garden, in which 
culinary vegetables and European fruits were attempted to be grown; 
and that the semblance might be more correct, peach and nectarine 
trees were trained to the rugged wall—a most unnecessary expedient 
in so warm a climate. The orchard fruit-trees were all stunted and 
unthrifty, the apples being literally eaten up by the American blight 
(Eriosoma mali ), which is exceedingly plentiful on the island. There 
is, at the upper end of the town, a spot of four or five acres laid out 
and planted as a pleasure-ground, called the Company s Garden. This 
contained a choice collection of tropical plants, and was used as a public 
mall by the inhabitants. 
