The Plant Hunters: Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains. Майн Рид

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ avocation in every corner of the world—through the sequestered passes of the Rocky Mountains, upon the pathless prairies, in the deep barrancas of the Andes, amid the tangled forests of the Amazon and the Orinoco, on the steppes of Siberia, in the glacier valleys of the Himalaya—everywhere—everywhere amid wild and savage scenes, where the untrodden and the unknown invite to fresh discoveries in the world of vegetation. Wandering on with eager eyes, scanning with scrutiny every leaf and flower—toiling over hill and dale—climbing the steep cliff—wading the dank morass or the rapid river—threading his path through thorny thicket, through “chapparal” and “jungle”—sleeping in the open air—hungering, thirsting, risking life amidst wild beasts, and wilder men—such are a few of the trials that chequer the life of the plant-hunter.

      From what motive, you will ask, do men choose to undergo such hardships and dangers?

      The motives are various. Some are lured on by the pure love of botanical science; others by a fondness for travel. Still others are the employés of regal or noble patrons—of high-born botanical amateurs. Not a few are the emissaries of public gardens and arboretums; and yet another few—perchance of humbler names and more limited means, though not less zealous in their well-beloved calling—are collectors for the “nursery.”

      Yes; you will no doubt be astonished to hear that the plain “seedsman” at the town end, who sells you your roots and bulbs and seedlings, keeps in his pay a staff of plant-hunters—men of botanical skill, who traverse the whole globe in search of new plants and flowers, that may gratify the heart and gladden the eyes of the lovers of floral beauty.

      Need I say that the lives of such men are fraught with adventures and hair-breadth perils? You shall judge for yourself when I have narrated to you a few chapters from the experience of a young Bavarian botanist—Karl Linden—while engaged in a plant-hunting expedition to the Alps of India—the stupendous mountains of the Himalaya.

Chapter Two.

       Table of Contents

      Karl Linden.

      Karl Linden was a native of Upper Bavaria, near the Tyrolese frontier. Not high-born, for his father was a gardener; but, what is of more importance in modern days, well brought up and well educated. A gardener’s son may still be a gentleman; and so may a gardener himself, for that matter, or he may not. There are many senses to this much-abused title. It so happens, that young Linden was a gentleman in the true sense; that is, he was possessed of a feeling heart, a nice sense of honesty and honour, and was, notwithstanding his humble lineage, an educated and accomplished youth. His father, the gardener, was a man of ambitious spirit, though quite unlettered; and, having himself often experienced the disadvantage of this condition, he resolved that his son never should.

      In most parts of Germany, education is considered a thing of value, and is eagerly sought after. It is provided liberally for all classes; and the Germans, as a people, are perhaps the best educated in the world. It is partly owing to this fact, and partly to their energetic industry, that they exercise so great an influence in the affairs of the world; in the arts and sciences, in music, painting, and the study of nature—above all, in a knowledge of botany. I cannot believe that the Germans stand highest as an intellectual race, but only as an educated people. What a pity I could not add, that they are a free people; but in that their condition differs less from our own than we fondly imagine.

      At nineteen years of age, young Karl Linden did not consider them as free as they deserved to be. He was then a student in one of the universities; and, naturally enough, had imbibed those principles of patriotic liberty, that, in 1848, were stirring in the German heart.

      He did more than advocate his faith by empty words. Joined with his college compatriots, he endeavoured to have it carried into practice; and he was one of those brave students, who, in 1848, gave freedom to Baden and Bavaria.

      But the hydra league of crowned heads was too strong to be so easily broken; and, among other youthful patriots, our hero was forced to flee from his native land.

      An exile in London—“a refugee,” as it is termed—he scarce knew what to do. His parent was too poor to send him money for his support. Besides, his father was not over well pleased with him. The old man was one of those who still clung to a belief in the divine right of kings, and was contented with the “powers that be,” no matter how tyrannical they be. He was angry with Karl, for having made a fool of himself by turning patriot, or “rebel,” as it pleases crowned monsters to term it. He had intended him for better things; a secretary to some great noble, a post in the Custom-house, or, may be, a commission in the bodyguard of some petty tyrant. Any of these would have fulfilled the ambitious hopes of Karl’s father. The latter, therefore, was displeased with the conduct of his son. Karl had no hope from home, at least until the anger of the old man should die out.

      What was the young refugee to do? He found English hospitality cold enough. He was free enough; that is, to wander the streets and beg.

      Fortunately, he bethought him of a resource. At intervals, during his life, he had aided his father in the occupation of gardening. He could dig, plant, and sow. He could prune trees, and propagate flowers to perfection. He understood the management of the greenhouse and hothouse, the cold-pit and the forcing-pit; nay, more—he understood the names and nature of most of the plants that are cultivated in European countries; in other words, he was a botanist. His early opportunities in the garden of a great noble, where his father was superintendent, had given him this knowledge; and, having a taste for the thing, he had made botany a study.

      If he could do no better, he might take a hand in a garden, or a nursery, or some such place. That would be better than wandering idly about the streets of the metropolis, and half-starving in the midst of its profuse plenty.

      With such ideas in his mind, the young refugee presented himself at the gate of one of the magnificent “nurseries,” in which great London abounds. He told his story; he was employed.

      It was not long before the intelligent and enterprising proprietor of the establishment discovered the botanical knowledge of his German protégé. He wanted just such a man. He had “plant-hunters” in other parts of the world; in North and South America, in Africa, in Australia. He wanted a collector for India; he wanted to enrich his stock from the flora of the Himalayas, just then coming into popular celebrity, on account of the magnificent forms of vegetation discovered there, by the great “plant-hunters” Boyle and Hooker.

      The splendid pine-trees, arums, and screw-pines; the varied species of bambusa, the grand magnolias and rhododendrons, which grow so profusely in the Himalaya valleys, had been described, and many of them introduced into European gardens. These plants were therefore the rage; and, consequently, the desiderata of the nurseryman.

      What rendered them still more interesting and valuable was, that many of those beautiful exotics would bear the open air of high latitudes, on account of the elevated region of their native habitat possessing a similarity of temperature and climate to that of northern Europe.

      More than one “botanical collector” was at this time despatched to explore the chain of the Indian Alps, whose vast extent offered scope enough for all.

      Among the number of these plant-hunters, then, was our hero, Karl Linden.

Chapter Three.

       Table of СКАЧАТЬ