Item 38 - Letter from Joseph Dalton Hooker to Brian Houghton Hodgson

1 letter

Yeumtong Septr 1 1849

My dear B

It is an age since I heard from you and since my visit to Tunkola Pass nothing remarkable has occurred except a run of very bad weather. Dorjiling to all intents and purposes except that the actual fall is nothing to compare now I think it has cleared up again and I hope for a recurrence of the usual Mts. rainy season climate, which is splendid mornings, showery afternoons and cloudy nights. I am getting on to the Doubiah Pass very slowly, for in such foggy weather with snow falling abundantly at 15,000ft it would be no use going far head. This valley is more remarkable for the flatness of its floor on the [N?] flank to which precipitous Mts. dip suddenly - as ever at [abt.] 12,000ft: there is little dip downward, not above 3000ft in 8 or 10 miles all are old lake beds most conspicuously so; divided by ridge of stones [?] [?] [?] [?] I am longing to know what you are about in geography and how the [?] progresses - I am strongly inclined to think that the Plateau of Thibet may prove really more the watershed than the Himal. We have now 3 of your [rivers?] to which it is undoubtedly so, viz the Arun, Teester and Matchiou, all contigeous rivers! you have told me the same of others and same of the Bhotian rivers all reputed so. It would be rather fine to exchange the Himal. altogether and seek the sources of all in an equally high latitude with the Indus Valley and Brahmaputra.

[BELOW IS A DRAWING SHOWING THE GANGES AND B.P. [BRAHMAPUTRA] RIVERS. NEXT TO IT IS THE REQUEST 'DON'T LAUGH AT MY WONDERFUL CHART']

Just see how dogmatical Madden is about the snow line! because Strachey makes it (I doubt not most accurately 15,500 in the N.W. I am to be expected to do ditto here - My [?] conceived before I ever said I know that the snow line extends from the Indus to the Brahma [?] will I expect come out right. Willcox gives it there 14,500 if I remember aright. I think I have found a glacier after all and if so of a totally different character from the [European?[ and only an exaggeration of what are [?] enough and what I call patches of glacial ice filling up a narrow excessively steep gulley and not like the Swiss moraines i.e. a broad valley of little inclination and many miles long. These are all more accumulations of frozen snow then streams of the same as which I understand true glaciers. As to the snow line here it can never be [judged?] if as Strachey does in the [?] our September and October [finds?] all so [?] and are truly [criminal?]. S. says that the N.W. snow line is not lowered till January ours is distinctly in October and most [materially?] Where I now am we have Perpetual Snow abundantly in perfect shade below 13,000 ft this does not affect the snow line I know, but it is a singular circumstance and very common in Sikkim even at 11,000 ft. It shows how feeble the sun's power is to raise the mean temperature of the summer solstice. Can any think be more striking that Thomson's and Madden's remarks the first talking of a fortnight's hot dry weather in July at Simlah, the other of the rains setting in on 25 July! at [Alenevah?] only fancy too fevers a Simlah in May and June to which Grant alludes I do not understand there to be [?] or agues [?] those English fevers so prevalent in hot Autumns in England. Madden talks of [?] the prevailing features [?] elevations in the N.W. now a [?] from Sikkim where at Dorjiling 20 miles within the range of where the eye roams over the greater part of Sikkim. No Pine is visible below 10,000ft By this [?] I have lifted the tropical genera up good 1000ft viz [?] [?] and all flowering [?] I have just found out is totally different from the N.W. None at all alpines flower till May [?] in March! I could draw except a curious parallel of flowering months and Please God will do so when I have the N.W. materials. My future prospects begin to occupy my mind I will not do through such another Sikkim Summer [?] like this nor would it be [?] profitable when the [?] and [?] Nepal. [?] latter is now [?] expensive [?] too expensive as you see that £300 is all the govt. give for next year except [?] F. applies for more and both her and I think it better to draw its [?] now and press the giving me a settles position and salary on my return. I should not however flinch at taxing the old gentleman for £300 more he could not afford me as he lives at great expense and has not allowances whatever Pray don't send me more wine and spirits - I do not divide a bottle of wine in a week and the brandy is really untouched. I send in a lot of roots for Campbell's and your garden. I hope they will live [basically?] the young pines require both care and [?] which your [?] cannot have however I [?] in future. I am [?] by the affair of the [?] which I have detailed [?]. The deeper insight [?] into these people the more clearly I see that the Rajah's orders are and were that I was not to be treated as a gentleman nor considered as such in Sikkim. Could I tell you the insolences given for me to my servants you would be as disgusted and shocked as I am that [an] Englishman, an officer and a gentleman should receive such treatment at the hands of a bare breeched dependant of the British Crown. It is not as I [told] Campbell as if I were where I had no right to be. He [thinks?] I have told him of the grave matters only [supported?] [?] insolence and spite displayed [?] whose word efforts like [?] water wears away stone [?] to heaven I have no spite [?] the Rajah, nor can one [?] he be punished or [not] [?] shocked and disgusted I am that such conduct should be suffered for months and months. People at home will not believe it. I don't care whose fault it is G.G's [Deriatus in Agenti?]

Ever your affectionate
J.D. Hooker