62 
REVIEWS. 
with; but this is a far from economical plan, for it is difficult to keep the refuse 
from damp and insects. 
u A powerful smell of opium pervaded these vast buildings, which Dr. Corbett 
assured me did not affect himself or the assistants. The men work ten hours a 
day, becoming sleepy in the afternoon ; but this is only natural in the hot season ; 
they are rather liable to eruptive diseases, possibly engendered by the nature of 
their occupation. Even the best East Indian opium is inferior to the Turkish, and, 
owing to the peculiarities of the climate, will, probably, always be so. It never 
yields more than five per cent, of morphia, whence its inferiority, but is as good in 
other respects, and even richer in narcotive. The care and attention devoted to 
every department of collecting, testing, manipulating, and packing is quite extra¬ 
ordinary ; and the result has been an impulse to the trade beyond what was anti¬ 
cipated. The natives have been quick at apprehending and supplying the wants of 
the market, and now there are more demands for licenses to grow opium than can 
be granted. All the opium eaten in India is given out with a permit to licensed 
dealers, and the drug is so adulterated before it reaches the retailers in the bazaars, 
that it does not contain one twentieth part of the intoxicating power it did when 
pure.” 
When Dr. Hooker set out to investigate the botany and the physical 
character of the eastern extremity of the great Himalaya range, Baron 
Humbolt addressed him a letter on certain objects which it was especially 
desirable he should keep in view. He there writes— 
“ Que je suis heureux d’apprendre que vous allez penetrer dans ces belles vallees 
d’ lTIimalaya, et me me au-dela, vers Ladak et les Plateux de Thibet , dont la 
hauteur moyenne, non confondue avec celles des cimes qui s’elevent dans le plateau 
meme, est un objet digue de recherche.” 
And in another passage— 
“Eclaircir le probleme de la hauteur des neigesperpetuelles a la pente meridionale 
et a la pente septentrionale de l’Himalaya, en vous rappelant les donnees que j’ai 
reunies dans le troiseme volume de mon ’Asie Centrale.”* 
We have inserted these extracts, as showing the interest which the veteran 
Humbolt took in the objects of the mission undertaken by Dr. Hooker. Need 
we say that the two objects proposed for his observation received such an 
amount of attention as to ensure their solution. Difficulties of no ordinary 
character had to be surmounted, arising partly from physical obstacles, 
which required great labour and patience to overcome, and partly from the 
jealous bickerings of the Sikkim tribes, who occupied the southern frontier 
passes; but the task had been undertaken by no mere adventurer ; Dr. 
Hooker was a genuine traveller, and no holiday sight-seer, about to 
write for the million. He had an object in view; and after twelve months 
of laborious anxiety, he achieved the object of his ambition, and succeeded 
in determining the elevation of the great Tibetian table-land, and also 
solving the second problem indicated by M. de Humbolt—the elevation 
of the snowline. We deeply regret our inability to follow our tra- 
* Hooker’s Journal of Botany, vol. i., p. 337. 
