Item 17 - Letter from Joseph Dalton Hooker to Brian Houghton Hodgson

1 letter

[?] [?] May 13 [1849]

My dear H
I wrote to you two days ago and have not much to add beyond what the Journal contains, all the rubbish about road routes and obstructions I have bothered Campbell with. I believe the [?] [?] [Nivian?] trouble is part with Meepo's feeble exposition of the silly Rajah's wishes - Meepo is evidently no fool though simple enough and has the honesty to giving me the credit of knowing the Rajah's feelings and nature of [?] obstacles. I could not help laughing at he simple manner in which he delivered the R's hookum that I was not to go to Lachen Lachong till Autumn and the evident expectation or certainty he entertained of any such proposition being overruled in two words for the moment I said I would do he dropped it and a goose gave the second hookum that if I did go I was not to cross into China. The scenery up this valley is very grand and I am getting new plants every day, though so far North of you (about 40 miles I guess) we have still a luxuriant tropical vegetation for 2500ft above each bank of the river. Vast timber trees, groves of Pandani and small Palms Bombax etc etc. The roads are extremely bad the great spurs and masses of rock all but impassable sometimes along the river bed and at others up the [steeps?] with scarce holding for the foot. India-rubber fig grows in the ricks beautifully but of all things the Pandanus is the most beautifully typically tropical and remarkable a feature - The forest is passing lovely I wish Tayler could see it and yet he could not appreciated the foliage and tints [or/on] the Gt. Rungeet and his pictures shew a total absence of feeling or judgement in this matter. Poor fellow he is groping in the dark as a Landscape painter and I am haunted with the idea of [Miss?] coming out from England and snubbing Papas foregrounds! After all the market is the best proof of the value of art, when that art has a market as his eminently has now and I assure you that as a work I would not bid a guinea for one of his Darj. landscapes. I would offer more for the place. I ventured to remonstrate on his foreground and opaque plasterings of body color daubed with outlines of trees without tone or transparency but got as summararily pooh-poohed by himself and Mrs. Lydiard as if I had not studied the finest galleries in Europe with judges of each as my guides, or was ignorant of the works and [workings?] of Mr. Stanfield, Fielding, Harrison, Stone, Richardson and fifty other water colour painters. I do not like to boast, being no artist myself but of art, I should be a judge, if [liking?] and training school the mind. I was anxious that Tayler should think for himself, for it will be a bitter day for him when he compares his own Landscapes with those of our first and second rate Masters in England. You have well remarked on the coloring of his portrait faces, whether European or Bhothean as opaque as untrue and [?] neither the tone, nor like flesh un-transparent and his Landscape foregrounds shew the same fault exactly. In [fancy?] works, costumes etc he has excellent taste and has carefully studied the subjects. His group of irregulars I agree with you is his best drawing but the landscape, fore and back ground are as bad as the figures and uniforms are good, literally horribly ill done are the great [tree?] and ground. No critic would grace it with the name of daub, but rather of plaster. His Hottentots and native solitary or grouped are all admirable. Except 'Jung Bahadur' who is ridiculously out of drawing, tumbling down and however rich and gay and good the coloring and uniform, the drawing and pose of the figure will effectively damn him as an artist; do look at it, and if you can, slip in a hint. Legs and arms and waist are all out of drawing and I fear he intends to publish it. The position too is vulgar and affected, not like a native whose grace no bad dressing can hide. Your [Martibar/n?] Ling is quite as good a drawing. The difference between an [outrageously?] dressed native and stage actor is so strong, that you, I am sure, would detect the figure and inherent grace of the former under any disguise and what trace of that is in Jung Bahadur? or of aught but a stage actor in Tamurlaine or [?] the Tartar. You will not I know think me hard on Tayler, but if he will throw up his best prospects and take to the worst [?] [?] man ever took to (painting), it would be well that he could be drawn to think and I know no one can do that better than you, in short I wish him to improve with you as I have done, and through you and he has ten times my talent and ability to avail himself of your guidance. There, as you often say are not questions whose sense an artist only can appreciate - that art may be best judged of by common sense and a practiced eye, is most clear and of this the [?] are ignorant picture dealers (who are rarely wrong) art, in the [annals] of paintings is the best proof and these ignorami detect the painter's hand in unknown works by the handling, where artists too prejudiced in their own favor cannot for they are blind to other merit than their own and know but their own means of attaining [force/form?] color shade etc. From all I can gather the Lachen Lachong passes are as I expected South of Waugh's Powhunry and I have given to Campbell my notions of the distribution and origin of these waters; if I am right the paper will lead on to a [?] and not on to what I should call the plain of Thibet proper and so great a distance therefrom that it would be out of the question to expect to reach it. I shall, at the top of the pass be South of Powhunry and except I make much more [?] than I expect (which would land me at P'hari) great spurs of the Mt. (Powhunry) must stretch N. East of me.

It appears to me that the fact of the Northern feeder, the Lachen, rising in a Lake and flowing to the Teesta, is conclusive on the so called plain against Cholamo (near it) being on this side the water shed, even if I did not see by my route a-head that the passes were S. of Powhunry. Suppose I get to Cholamo, that is as far as I can, for the next stop if I remember right is a village and this is I suppose on top of the water-shed, or therabouts

May 14 [Lings] W. bank of Teesta

Dear H.
We came on here last night - are about 1/2 of a mile or so South of the junction of L.L. with Teesta some [500ft?] above the riverbed, where there is a bridge which I am about to cross and strike N.E. up the Lachen Lachong. I am extremely doubtful if I am doing right in persisting in Lachen Lachong, now that the upper course of the Teesta which Campbell says leads to a pass is open to me. for, if true such a pass would [sink?] my Thibet plan [?] the best, and I could most surely descend upon it without fear of obstructions. This must lead far W of Powhunry and go right North through the Snowy range. None of my people, nor Meepo, nor villagers profess to know any th9ing of a Pass in that direction, all say, after a few marches the country is impracticable. I doubt the Rajahs wishing me to go there if it led to a pass and Campbell's information is very vague, especially as to time and ergo the requisite food - as an axiom it is better always to adhere to first intentions, and if I am effectively opposed about Lachen Lachong, I can still bear up or this is [Autumn?]. The country here is outrageously wild and the branches of the Teesta E and W look specially uninviting. These marches in the hot valleys are most fatiguing and I am generally utterly prostrated in mind and body by the exposure and heat and fit for nothing but bed. I never felt any thing like this exhaustion and my body is as salt as a herring dry and clammy, a good wash revives me but I can hardly keep my eyes open to write up my journal. The people all behave remarkably well ad really they are a very fine race these Lepchas, patient and enduring and so cheerful and kindly disposed to one another for [fi'deleness?] and [?] I am always prepared. I never hear of a row in camp or see them quarrel as the men of [?] did. I think it is the full chin that gives much of the womanish cast to the face and really some of them look more like great girls than men. One of my boys acts valet really very well now that [Hoffman's/Hopman's?] arm is disabled. Washes me down much as an ostler does his hack and is most careful and attentive, he is a clean youth whom I liken to Cherubino in Don Giovanni. To see two washing my feet would make you laugh they handle them as if made of glass and when highly polished blow any specs of dust off! But I must break off - I write to Jenkins hereby.
Best regards to Tayler

Ever yr affectionate
Jos. D. Hooker

P.S. I have found a fine new (to me) species of Tree Fern with prickly stems and a very succulent eatable core.