Page:Charles von Hügel (1903 memoir).djvu/51

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MEMORIAL ADDRESS
19

delayed till the year 1844. It is principally concerned with matter of the sort which it is hardest to deal with scientifically, that is to say, the description of coins, natural products, etc., brought home by the traveller.

To judge rightly Hügel’s work on Cashmere, we must take for our standard the knowledge of his days and not that of our own, for which last we have chiefly to thank English men of science. On a comparison of the then existing knowledge of Cashmere with the results of the investigations described in the first three volumes of the above-named book, the unbiassed expert must needs conclude that Hügel added abundantly to the knowledge of the country. The map of Cashmere drawn by compass, with the record of distances which he established on the spot was a distinct advance; and his notes on the climate (especially his numerous temperature readings), on rivers, mountains, and passes, are as valuable as the rich array of data which he gives about useful natural products of the country. The second volume, devoted to the history of Cashmere, is likewise a valuable contribution, and his abundant observations concerning the religion, the manners, and the customs of the inhabitants are no less so. Interspersed throughout are precious remarks which manifest his unceasing love for the world of flowers; for instance, his description of the flowers cultivated in Indian gardens, or observations on the home of the "semper florens" rose, which he locates in the valleys of the Himalayas, as only here had he seen this rose growing wild, "always in the thicket associated with Jasminium grandiflorum."

The most valuable portion of the book on Cashmere is the fourth volume. The first section of this volume, an interesting exposition of the astrology of the Hindoos, is written by Hügel himself. The remaining sections are