highly, as the invitation was accompanied with the assurance that I
should have entire freedom to follow my own pursuits; and the
advantages which such a position afforded me, were, I need not say,
of no ordinary kind.

At the Botanic Gardens I received every assistance from Dr.
McLelland,* [Dr. Falconer's _locum tenens,_ then in temporary
charge of the establishment.] who was very busy, superintending the
publication of the botanical papers and drawings of his friend, the
late Dr. Griffith, for which native artists were preparing copies on
lithographic paper.

Of the Gardens themselves it is exceedingly difficult to speak; the
changes had been so very great, and from a state with which I had no
acquaintance. There had been a great want of judgment in the
alterations made since Dr. Wallich's time, when they were celebrated
as the most beautiful gardens in the east, and were the great object
of attraction to strangers and townspeople. I found instead an
unsightly wilderness, without shade (the first requirement of every
tropical garden) or other beauties than some isolated grand trees,
which had survived the indiscriminate destruction of the useful and
ornamental which had attended the well-meant but ill-judged attempt
to render a garden a botanical class-book. It is impossible to praise
too highly Dr. Griffith's abilities and acquirements as a botanist,
his perseverance and success as a traveller, or his matchless
industry in the field and in the closet; and it is not wonderful,
that, with so many and varied talents, he should have wanted the eye
of a landscape-gardener, or the education of a horticulturist.
I should, however, be wanting in my duty to his predecessor, and to
his no less illustrious successor, were these remarks withheld,