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2 During my stay at Cashmere, I did not neglect any oppor
3 tunity of acquiring a knowledge of its botanical treasures, or, of
4 collecting such plants as appeared likely to be of any service for
5 medicinal purposes; I thus gathered a considerable herbarium
6 mourn : The drawings of those which I considered as most
7 valuable in medical botany, may be seen in the second volume,
8 and their properties and effects (as far as I was able to dis-
9 cover) are also detailed in the pages of that volume. Besides
10 the Flora Medica Cashmereana , there are also descriptions
11 of other plants, which I collected in the plains of the Punjab,
12 the virtues of which I tested, and now communicate. Many of
13 them are, probably, already known to European physicians,
14 but, as I have written not for Europe alone, but also for the
15 East, I have introduced them, because many of the Indian physi-
16 cians are not thoroughly acquainted with them — not even with
17 their forms or properties. It would have been easy for me to
18 have doubled or tripled the number, had the limits of this work
19 permitted.
20 Many of my readers may possibly question the utility of
21 these descriptions, on the ground, that, even supposing the
22 efficacy of the plants to be established, and their utility in
23 medicine practically and successfully proved, the knowledge
24 of them cannot be of any service to European physicians, as
25 they will not be able to procure supplies. This, however, is
26 not the case; for, although their principal use may be in India,
27 the shawl merchants of Cashmere, who are in constant com-
28 munication with France and England, would willingly for-
29 ward whatever might be required, to any part of India or
30 Europe. On this point, I have only to observe, that their
31 transport should not be by the long route round the Cape
32 of Good Hope, but by the Red Sea and the Mediterranean ;
33 or, if possible, entirely overland ; because, unless they are in
34 hermetically-sealed packages, they invariably suffer by a sea pas-
35 sage. I may further mention, that my catalogue of Cashmerean
36 plants is not by any means complete, and that, should Heaven
37 permit me to fulfil my intention, of again visiting that country