The proposal to introduce the chinchona-plants into India was first made officially in a despatch from the Governor-General, dated March 27th, 1852. It was referred to the late Dr. Royle, the reporter on Indian products to the East India Company, who drew up an able memorandum on the subject, dated June, 1852:--"To the Indian Government," he said, "the home supply of a drug which already costs 7000_l._ a year would be advantageous in an economical point of view, and invaluable as affording means of employing a drug which is indispensable in the treatment of Indian fevers. I have no hesitation in saying that, after the Chinese teas, no more important plant could be introduced into India." The only result of this application from India was that the Foreign Office was requested to obtain a supply of plants and seeds from the consuls in South America, and instructions to that effect were sent out to them in October, 1852. In the autumn of 1853 Mr. Mark wrote from Bogota that some delay would be necessary, and nothing more was heard from that quarter; Mr. Sullivan, the consul-general in Peru, replied that it would be impossible to accomplish a successful result, through the jealousy of the people; but Mr. Cope, the excellent and venerable consul-general at Quito, made a more satisfactory and substantial answer, in the shape of a box of chinchona plants and seeds from Cuenca and Loxa. They, however, did not long survive the voyage to England. Seeds of _C. Calisaya_, procured through Mr. Pentland, were sent to the botanical gardens at Calcutta, but did not germinate; and in 1853 six plants of the same valuable species, contributed by the Horticultural Societies of Edinburgh and London, raised from seeds sent home by Dr. Weddell from Bolivia, were taken out to Calcutta by Mr. Fortune. They arrived in good order, but all died through gross carelessness in their removal to Darjeeling. In May, 1853, Dr. Royle drew up a second long and valuable report upon the subject, and the question was then allowed to drop for some years. It is a curious coincidence that at the very time when Dr. Royle was writing this report I was actually exploring some of the chinchona forests of Peru. But the object of my travels was of an antiquarian and ethnological character, and I was in ignorance of the desire of the Indian Government to procure supplies of those plants, which I then only admired for their beauty.