INTRODUCTION OF CHINCHONA-PLANTS INTO INDIA.

PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS.

The distribution of valuable products of the vegetable kingdom amongst the nations of the earth—their introduction from countries where they are indigenous into distant lands with suitable soils and climates—is one of the greatest benefits that civilization has conferred upon mankind. Such measures ensure immediate material increase of comfort and profit, while their effects are more durable than the proudest monuments of engineering skill. With all their shortcomings, the Spaniards can point to vast plains covered with wheat and barley, to valleys waving with sugar-cane, and to hill-slopes enriched by vineyards and coffee-plantations, as the fruits of their conquest of South America. On the other hand, India owes to America the aloes which line the roads in Mysore, the delicious anonas, the arnotto-tree, the sumach, the capsicums so extensively used in native curries, the pimento, the papaw, the cassava which now forms the staple food of the people of Travancore, the potato, tobacco, Indian corn, pine-apples, American cotton, and lastly the chinchona: while the slopes of the Himalayas are enriched by tea-plantations, and the hills of Southern India are covered with rows of coffee-trees.

It is by thus adding to the sources of Indian wealth that England will best discharge the immense responsibility she has incurred by the conquest of India, so far as the material interests of that vast empire are concerned. Thus too will she leave behind her by far the most durable monument of the benefits conferred by her rule. The canals and other works of the Moguls were in ruins before the English occupied the country; but the melons which the Emperor Baber, the founder of the Mogul dynasty, introduced into India, and which caused him to shed tears while thinking of his far-off mountain-home, still flourish round Delhi and Agra. Centuries after the Ganges canal has become a ruin, and the great Vehar reservoir a dry valley, the people of India will probably have cause to bless the healing effects of the fever-dispelling chinchona-trees, which will still be found on their southern mountains.

The introduction of the chinchona-plant into India was surrounded by difficulties from which all other undertakings of a similar nature have been free. When tea was introduced into the Himalayan districts, it had been a cultivated plant in China for many ages, and experienced Chinese cultivators came with it. But the chinchona had never been cultivated; since the discovery of its value in 1638 it had remained a wild forest tree; all information concerning it was solely derived from the observations of European travellers who had penetrated into the virgin forests; and the only guidance for cultivators in India is to be found in the reports of these travellers, and in the experience slowly acquired by careful and intelligent trials.[115] Great as these difficulties were, they were probably exceeded by the perils and risks of every description which must be encountered in collecting plants and seeds in South America, and conveying them in safety to India.

But the vast importance of the introduction of these plants into our Indian empire, and the inestimable benefits which would thus be conferred on the millions who inhabit the fever-haunted plains and jungles, were commensurate with the difficulties of the undertaking. The subject had occupied the attention of the Indian Government from time to time, ever since Dr. Royle in 1839 advocated the introduction of quinine-yielding trees into India, in his work on Himalayan Botany; but it was not until twenty years afterwards, in 1859, that any adequate steps were taken to effect this most desirable end, and to bring an antidote within the reach of the fever-stricken people of India, while adding a new source of wealth to the resources of that great dependency.

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 7000l. 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.

In March, 1856, Dr. Royle made a final attempt to induce the East India Company to take efficient steps to procure supplies of chinchona plants and seeds from South America; and proposed to employ Dr. Jamieson, the able Professor of Botany in the University of Quito, for this purpose. The lamented death of that eminent botanist Dr. Royle, to whom India owes so much, again put an end to all discussion of the subject for some time; but in 1859 energetic measures were set on foot, which at length effected the desired object fully and completely. Dr. Royle is well known as the author of works on Himalayan botany, on the cotton cultivation and on the fibres of India, and of a 'Materia Medica' containing a valuable article on the chinchona genus, which he caused to be printed separately for circulation in India. For several years he took the warmest interest in the proposed measures for the introduction of chinchona-plants into India, and used every influence at his command to effect this most important object. But he was not destined to see the final achievement of a design which he seems to have had so much at heart.

In 1859 my services were accepted to superintend the collection of chinchona plants and seeds in South America, and their introduction into India; and I was authorised by Lord Stanley, then Secretary of State for India, to make such arrangements as should best ensure the complete success of an enterprise, the results of which were expected to add materially to the resources of our Indian Empire. The urgent necessity of this measure had become more apparent since Dr. Royle's time. Then the Government of India expended 7000l. a year upon quinine; but in 1857 the expenditure had risen to 12,000l., and continued to increase during the following years.[116]

I at once determined to take measures for obtaining plants and seeds of all the valuable species of chinchonÆ described in a former chapter; to arrange so that, if possible, they should be collected simultaneously in the different regions separated by many hundreds of miles from each other; and that, warned by the fatal error of the Dutch in Java, no species should be introduced into India which did not possess bark of well-established commercial value. In one of his reports Dr. Royle had most truly said that "the greater the number of species obtained, as well as the greater the extent of country over which the seeds are collected, the greater is the probability of finding soils and climates in India for their successful culture." It was thus necessary to employ competent persons to collect in New Granada, Ecuador, the Huanuco forests of Northern Peru, and Caravaya or Bolivia at the same time. I considered that it was essential that the proceedings should be completed during the first year if possible, in order to give as short a time as was practicable for the awakening of that narrow-minded jealousy in the people of the South American Republics, which I was well aware would sooner or later be aroused. It was also my duty to get the work done economically, and there could be no doubt that the employment of several agents for a few months would cost less than the mission of a single traveller, who would have to make his way over thousands of miles, for three or four years. Time also was an object with regard to the establishment of plantations in India.

The Secretary of State for India sanctioned all the details of my plan, with the exception of the expedition to New Granada,[117] and the provision of a steamer to convey the plants direct across the Pacific to India. But it was no easy matter to find agents possessed of the necessary qualifications for the work. A personal acquaintance with the chinchona forests, a knowledge of the country, of the people, and of the languages, were essential, as well as of the particular species of chinchona-trees growing in each region; and, as the service was to be performed without delay, no time could be spared for acquiring any of these qualifications.

For the chinchona forests in Ecuador I was so fortunate as to secure the services of Mr. Spruce, an excellent botanist and most intrepid explorer, who had been engaged for several years in the examination of the wilds of South America, and who was actually on the spot. Of his qualifications there could be no doubt, but I could scarcely have ventured to hope that the service which he undertook to perform would have been done so completely and so thoroughly, and would have been crowned with such undoubted success. It is perhaps invidious to make distinctions, where all have worked so zealously; but it is due to Mr. Spruce to say that by far the largest share of credit is due to him, and that his name must take the most prominent place in connection with the introduction of these precious plants into India. The region assigned to him was the most important, as it yielded the "red-bark" tree (C. succirubra), containing a larger percentage of febrifugal alkaloids than any other species; and I felt more sanguine of success in this quarter than in any other, because the country of the "red bark" was more accessible than any of the others, the forests being on the western slopes of the Andes, navigable rivers flowing through them to the Pacific Ocean, and there being, therefore, no necessity of conveying the plants over the snowy wilds of the cordilleras. I also requested Mr. Spruce to make an arrangement for procuring seeds of the valuable species from the forests of Loxa.

For the forests of the Peruvian province of Huanuco I procured the services of Mr. Pritchett, a gentleman who had passed some years in South America, and who was well acquainted with that particular region. He was to collect plants and seeds of the species yielding grey bark.

I myself undertook to explore the forests either of Caravaya or Bolivia, and to collect the C. Calisaya and other important species of that more distant region. This part of the enterprise was surrounded by peculiar difficulties, arising from the jealousy of the people, habitual with the Bolivians, and recently excited in the minds of the Peruvians of Caravaya by the proceedings of M. Hasskarl, the Dutch agent; while the forests are far more inaccessible, and the journey to the coast is longer and more formidable.

It was the opinion of Sir William Hooker, who gave me the advantage of his valuable advice, that a good practical working gardener should accompany both Mr. Spruce and myself, and he considered this an imperative requirement, in order that they might attend to the packing of the plants in the forests, their establishment in Wardian cases, and have charge of them during the voyage to India. I appointed Mr. Cross, at his recommendation, to act under the orders of Mr. Spruce; and Mr. Weir, who was recommended to me by Mr. Veitch, accompanied me to the chinchona forests of Caravaya.

In employing several agents in districts widely removed from each other, my chief object was to effect the introduction of as many valuable species as possible; but I also reflected on the extreme difficulty of the undertaking, and the overwhelming chances against success which confronted a single-handed attempt. In such wild unfrequented regions all is uncertainty. Along the dizzy paths of the Andes a single false step may dash the fairest hopes, disappoint the most careful calculations. Add to these dangers the probability of obstacles raised by the natives, and it will at once be seen that three independent expeditions materially increased the chances of ultimate success.

By the end of 1859 I had completed all the preliminary arrangements; and there was at length a prospect of securing the successful introduction into India of a plant the inestimable value of which had been felt, and the importance of its cultivation discussed, for twenty years. On December 17th, 1859, we sailed from England, and, crossing the isthmus of Panama, arrived in Lima, the capital of Peru, on January 26th, 1860. Thirty Wardian cases for the plants had been sent out round Cape Horn, and I forwarded fifteen to Guayaquil for Mr. Spruce's collection, and fifteen to the port of Islay in Southern Peru, to await my return from the chinchona forests. After a month's residence in Lima we embarked on board one of the mail-steamers for the southward, and on the 2nd of March, 1860, we landed at Islay, which is more conveniently situated than any other port for a journey to the chinchona forests of Southern Peru or Bolivia.