the Hoogly: the latter being a work attended with great expense, now
cripples the resources of the garden library, and other valuable
adjuncts; for the trees which were planted for the purpose having
been felled and sold, it became necessary to buy timber at an
exorbitant price.

The avenue of Cycas trees (_Cycas circinalis_), once the admiration
of all visitors, and which for beauty and singularity was unmatched
in any tropical garden, had been swept away by the same unsparing
hand which had destroyed the teak, mahogany, clove, nutmeg, and
cinnamon groves. In 1847, when I first visited the establishment,
nothing was to be seen of its former beauty and grandeur, but a few
noble trees or graceful palms rearing their heads over a low ragged
jungle, or spreading their broad leaves or naked limbs over the
forlorn hope of a botanical garden, that consisted of open clay beds,
disposed in concentric circles, and baking into brick under the
fervid heat of a Bengal sun.

The rapidity of growth is so great in this climate, that within eight
months from the commencement of the improvements, a great change had
already taken place. The grounds bore a park-like appearance; broad
shady walks had replaced the narrow winding paths that ran in
distorted lines over the ground, and a large Palmetum, or collection
of tall and graceful palms of various kinds, occupied several acres
at one side of the garden; whilst a still larger portion of ground
was being appropriated to a picturesque assemblage of certain closely
allied families of plants, whose association promised to form a novel
and attractive object of study to the botanist, painter, and
landscape gardener. This, which the learned Director called in
scientific language a Thamno-Endogenarium, consists of groups of all