shews the estimate then formed of his character: Some of the other boys having complained of him to
their master, received the reply, " I like a deevil better than a dult."
He continued in the gardens of the Earl of Mansfield, and passed a seven years' apprenticeship there,
first in the flower garden, and then in the fruit garden, and was encouraged in his taste for plants by Mr
Beattie and Messrs R. & J. Brown, of the Perth Nursery, two good British botanists.
Shortly after he had completed his apprenticeship at Scone, he was recommended by Mr Beattie to
the gardener of Sir Robert Preston, of Valleyfield. Sir Robert was a botanist, and Valleyfield was at that
time celebrated for a very select collection of plants. Here Douglas remained for two years (the last as
foreman), and derived great advantage, not only from the opportunities of studying the living plants in the
garden, but from having access to Sir Robert Preston's botanical library.
His ambition growing with his knowledge, he next made application, and succeeding in gaining
admission to the Botanic Gardens at Glasgow. At that time Dr Hooker was the Professor of Botany, and
Mr Stewart Murray, Curator of the Garden. It is needless to say that, in such an improving situation, and
under such enthusiastic and zealous lovers of nature, his cravings were not baulked, and his own good
qualities gained him their friendship, which subsisted through life. Besides a zealous performance of his
professional duties, he diligently attended the botanical lectures given by the Professor, and was his favourite
companion in some distant excursions to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, where the Professor had an
opportunity of observing his great activity, undaunted courage, singular abstemiousness, and energetic zeal.
These excursions were the turning point in Douglas' career. In these Professor Hooker had been so
struck by his qualifications for a botanical collector, that he recommended him to Mr Sabine, then Secretary
to the Horticultural Society, which had already begun that course of useful exploration which has been the
means of introducing so many valuable plants into this country. Mr Sabine and the Council adopted
Professor Hooker's recommendation, and Douglas, in 1823, entered the service of the Horticultural Society
as botanical collector.
The first intention was to despatch him to China; but intelligence having been received of a rupture
between the British and Chinese, his destination was changed, and, as a temporary occupation, he was sent
to the United States, chiefly to secure additions of the best of the American varieties of fruit trees to the
Society's collection; and a large number of valuable trees were thence procured by him.
He returned in the autumn of 1823, and in 1824 an opportunity having offered, through the Hudson's
Bay Company, of sending him to the Columbia River, in North-West America, to explore the surrounding
regions, he sailed in July on that mission.
The Hudson's Bay Company, in those days, had two modes by which they kept up communication
with their distant territories in North-West America: one by vessels to York Factory in Hudson's Bay,
whence a brigade crossed the country overland (if a continuous voyage in canoes along rivers and lakes,
interrupted only by a few portages, can be called a land journey); and the other by sea, round Cape
Horn, to the Columbia River. Douglas went by the latter, and, in the course of the long eight months'
voyage, had the opportunity of seeing something of the vegetation of Madeira, Rio Janeiro, Juan
Fernandez, and the Galapago Islands, the ship having touched at these places. Of late years, however, the
voyage is made direct to London, from Victoria, Vancouver Island (now their chief depot), the passage
occupying about five months.
On 7th April 1825 he landed on the shores of the Columbia, and for the next two years passed his
time in exploring the botany of the surrounding country. His excursions during this period were chiefly
between the shore and the Cascade Mountains, and northwards to the Spokane River. He also went
southward into Oregon, as far as the Umpqua or Aguilar River, to procure seeds of the Sugar Pine
(Pinus Lambertiana). This was the most fertile period of his researches. He introduced into this
country 165 new plants, many of them of the greatest value ; and it may truly be said that there is scarcely
a spot deserving the name of a garden, either in Europe or the United States, in which some of his
introductions do not form the chief attraction.
In
In 1827 (20th March) he started to return to Britain by the annual overland express to Hudson's Bay,
botanising as much as he could on his way, passing through the Red River country, the Athabasca, Lake
Winipeg, &c., to York Factory, and he arrived in England in October the same year.
For a short time after his return to England, Douglas enjoyed the pleasures of being feted and lionized
to his heart's content. But he soon tired of it; his temper was sometimes over-sensitive, and he became
restless and dissatisfied, and longed to get back to the more rugged but congenial pursuit of nature in her
own solitudes.
As an additional compensation for his services, the Council of the Horticultural Society agreed to
grant him the profits which might accrue from the publication of the Journal of his Travels, which had been
regularly forwarded to the Society, and is still preserved in their archives, in the preparation of which for the
press he was offered the assistance of Mr Sabine and Dr Lindley, and Mr Murray, of Albemarle Street, was
consulted on the subject; but this proffered kindness was rejected by Douglas, who had thoughts of
preparing the Journal entirely himself. We think his decision was the right one, although, as it has turned
out, it would have been better had it been different. He was perfectly competent to the task himself, and he
was a man of too much original thought to make it desirable that his individuality should be merged in a
tripartite composition; but if he had consented to the proposition, we should have had the Journal, while
now we have it not. He laboured at it during the time he was in England, but never completed it.
After spending two years in London, his wishes to return to the exploration of the wilds of North-West
America were gratified, and he sailed in the beginning of November 1829, with extended aims. In addition
to his proper mission as Collector for the Horticultural Society, he was also employed by the Colonial Office
to take observations upon magnetic and atmospheric phenomena, as well as for geographical purposes, and
the Colonial Office accordingly supplied him with instruments, and contributed to the expenses of the
expedition.
He again went out by the long route (round Cape Horn) and arrived at the Columbia River on 3d
June 1830, the ship having touched at Oahoo, in the Sandwich Islands, where he was so much interested
with the place and vegetation as to lead to his returning to it afterwards, there to find his grave. The
remainder of 1830 he spent in further exploring the country around the Columbia River, and many fine
additions were made, by that year's work, to the plants now in England.
The year 1831 he spent in exploring California, a country, the botany of which was, until his expedition,
almost unknown. He sailed from the Columbia for Monterey, and arrived there on 22d December 1830,
when spring had already commenced. He occupied himself until the end of April in making excursions in
the neighbourhood of Monterey. He next made an excursion southwards to Santa Barbara, in the middle
of May, where he made a short stay, and returned late in June by the same route, occasionally penetrating
the mountain valleys which skirt the coast. He shortly after started for San Francisco, and proceeded to
the north of that port. He says, in a letter to Sir W. Hooker: " My principal object was to reach the spot
whence I returned in 1826, which, I regret to say, could not be accomplished. My last observation was at
38° 45", which leaves an intervening blank of sixty-five miles: small as this distance may appear to you, it
was too much for me." Douglas's observations must have been inaccurate, or the distance much greater than
he supposed, for 38° 45" is very little more northerly than the latitude of San Francisco. His whole collection
of that year in California only amounted to five hundred species, a little more or less, and he wrote: " This
is vexatiously small, I am aware; but when I inform you that the season for botanising does not last longer
than three months, your surprise will cease. Such is the rapidity with which spring advances, as on the
table lands of Mexico, and the platforms of the Andes in Chili, the plants bloom here only for a day. The
intense heats set in about June, when every bit of herbage is dried to a cinder." Notwithstanding this, he
succeeded in introducing into the gardens in England, by seeds or otherwise, forty-four new California plants,
from this year's exploring, most of them our standard Californian favourites to the present day.
No opportunity of leaving California occurred in the autumn and winter of 1831, or the spring and
summer of 1832, the Hudson's Bay Company's vessel not having called at Monterey. He thus remained
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