Page:Himalayan journals; or, Notes of a naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, &c- Volume I.djvu/16

 the expediency of securing my collections for the Royal Gardens at Kew ; and owing to the generous exertions of that nobleman, and of the late Earl of Auckland (then First Lord of the Admiralty), my journey assumed the character of a Government mission, £400 per annum being granted by the Treasury for two years.

I did not contemplate proceeding beyond the Hima- laya and Tibet, when Lord Auckland desired that I should afterwards visit Borneo, for the purpose of reporting on the capabilities of Labuan, with reference to the cultivation of cotton, tobacco, sugar, indigo, spices, gutta- percha, &c. To this end a commission in the navy (to which service I was already attached) was given me, such instructions were drawn up as might facilitate my movements in the East, and a suitable sum of money was placed at my disposal.

Soon after leaving England, my plans became, from various causes, altered. The Earl of Auckland* was dead ; the interest in Borneo had in a great measure subsided; H. M. S. "Maeander," to which I had been attached for service in Labuan, had left the Archipelago ; reports of the unhealthy nature of the coast had excited