Letter from E.S. [Edward Sabine] to Joseph Sabine esq [secretary of the Horticultural Society of London], 42 Warwick Street, Regent Street, London

Title

Letter from E.S. [Edward Sabine] to Joseph Sabine esq [secretary of the Horticultural Society of London], 42 Warwick Street, Regent Street, London

Record type

Archive

Original Reference

RHS/Col/2/Z1/11

Date

2 Feb 1822

Scope & content

Written from HMS Iphigenia, at the entrance to the Gambia [Gambia River, Guinea, Senegal and The Gambia]

He sends the letter from St Mary's [Banjul, The Gambia] by a merchant ship, whose master is on board the Iphigenia; they are all well, healthy and comfortable; they love the climate; the temperature is 69° night and day, and the weather is clear with a gentle breeze; he sleeps with a blanket and quilt and has not yet been inconvenienced by the heat; he refers Joseph to his letter to Sir H. Davy [Humphry Davy, chemist and inventor, president of the Royal Society] for an account of his time at Madeira [Portugal] [published in 'The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and Art', Volume 15, pages 75-82]; they were at Tenerife [Spain] for seven hours, at Port Praya [Praia, Cape Verde] one day, and at Goree [Goree, Senegal] a 'sufficient' two hours; they will remain for three or four days in the Rio Grande [Grande de Buba River, Guinea-Bissau] where the commodore means to employ his boats, and Edward will make observations and collect specimens; they had some success yesterday at the Bird Island [Ile des Oiseaux, Senegal] and they hope to send good specimens from Sierra Leone; 'Don [George Don] does not help me, he is a dead weight, as I am always obliged to watch that he is not left behind. The officers were very much disposed to be civil to him, but he is very crass and unmannered towards them – he seems to be happy in his cabin from which he rarely emerges except to go on shore'; Clavering [Douglas Charles Clavering, captain of HMS Pheasant] has spoken to Mends [Robert Mends, captain of HMS Iphigenia] about Edward's removal to the Pheasant; Mends will likely be pleased to return quickly home to his family; he will be sorry to part from Mends, but Clavering's friendship is worth cultivating; he will not be so hurried in the Pheasant; he will cross the Atlantic in the Pheasant, and he asks Joseph to tell Sir R. Woodford [Ralph Woodford, British governor of Trinidad] that he and Clavering will remain three or four weeks in August at Trinidad on their way from the Amazons; Clavering proposes to visit the Bermudas on their way home, so Joseph is to mention any plants he wants from there; he finds Daniell's [John Frederic Daniell, chemist and physicist, friend of Edward's at the Royal Society] hygrometer invaluable, and asks Joseph to send a third for him to the commanding officer of artillery at Kingston, Jamaica; he does not have the time to summarise his many occupations, but he is very busy with them; everything is as he expected 'except that the sharks are more formidable animals than I was aware of – and one dare not trust ever one's hands in the sea to wash them'; he has heard of a rare black partridge in the Gambia and will try tomorrow morning to purchase one from St Mary's; he will write more on his way to Sierra Leone

Extent

4 page letter (2 sheets)

Is part of

RHS archive: plant collector papers

Repository

Royal Horticultural Society Lindley Library

Copyright

John J. Timothy Jeal

Credit Line

Courtesy John J. Timothy Jeal / RHS Lindley Collections

Usage terms

Non-commercial use with attribution permitted (CC BY-NC 4.0)