Florence <1>
April 26
My dear Henry
I recd your letter of the 4. from Paris, & at the same time one of the 10 from Abbotsbury – which makes me expect soon to have an answer to one I wrote on my arrival An outline of my tour is soon given thus – Vienna Leopol, Odessa, Perecop, Akmechet, or White mosque, Bakchy Sarai, or Garden Court, Sevastopol, or Cæsaropolis, Balaclava, Coast, Karasoubazar or Blackwater Market, Caffa, Cimmerian Bos – up the Couban, down the Terek – along the Caspian to Astrakhan up the Volga to Sarepta – Tzaritzin down the Don to Chercask Taganrok, Cherson, & across to Odessa – An Avalanche near Dariel which had just fallen from Mt Kasbek prevented my crossing Caucasus – I had a letter from John <2> at Salonica he is was going to make an excursion from Smyrna to Constantinople <3> & then they go to Alexandria he will go up to Cairo, but will return with the ship to Malta. I wish while you are in London you could get Mr F. <4> or Sir C. C. <5> to introduce you to some Naval men going to the Levant you might make a delightful tour there & with more time than John has you could go deeper into the countries. They are continually going into odd corners one never hears of –
I have seen a good deal of Raddi <6> – Some great men here have taken up his cause & are going to enable him to publish parts of his collections – & it may extend to all – of course he is hard at work – any notice you could send him relating to S. American botany or leaf or flower out of a hothouse, would interest him – Pray send me in a letter any little flower you think new to him from any part of the World. I want somebody to botanise in Persia I want to know where European & Mediterranean herbage meet the Indian – I suppose in Khorasan or the Mts of Candahar or is there an intermediate Flora as in Armenia (tho that can only be in the Mts) & in China? I went out one day to look for T. Gesneriana <7> but found only O Solis <8> which is subject to as many varieties in stature as the other is in colour – here Mr Reboul <9> wants to make species of them & calls one T. Raddi as a bribe – I have not seen it but I believe it is exactly Tenores <10> T. præcox – another is called T. Strangulata from its shape in bud – [sketch] another maleolens – another Buonarottiana – this latter is really a distinct plant but not species – it is certainly hybrid between sylvestris & O Solis both equally common here – it has the smell & shape of Sylv- & spots of O Solis – but instead of red is a peculiar Salmon or veal-colour its most distinct mark is a hairy stem which is also in varieties of O Solis –
However I found the interesting enclosed – of which I hope to send you seeds in a month or two – it grew with Pulmonaria off: or angust: <11> (as I could not see the rootleaves) Anemone Apennina Rosa sempervirens – I think it must have been overlooked as a Genista which its long twigs lying in the grass very much resemble. Raddi says it is Santis vulgaris as the blue is not a native or at least uncommon – Santi calls all Cyclamens Europæum – the Autumnal one alone exists here which Raddi calls hederæfol: the name Tenore gives to the Spring one which is in reality peculiar to Naples rather than the other – how can one settle this? when there is one equally [sweet?] with both, as fine a colour as the spring one, & the same [illegible] <12> flowers in August in the hills about Linz (Danube) is <13> Europæum or hederæfol: In our gardens Europæum soidisant <14> is frequently white & scentless – & flowers at any time. Raddi thinks that in course of time one plant may become another to the great prejudice of its individuality as we see here in Scilla campanulata & the scentless Hyacinth. non scriptus which I am convinced were one & the same in the days of first postdiluvians. There seems to be no true Hyacinth but orientalis – if you exclude non S. or nutans as it shd be. Can you in your visits to the gardens pick a flower of the new Fuchsia & send it me for Raddi. Do you know Asperula arvensis. Euphor
The inland vallies of the Crimea resemble the views I have of the Saxon Switz: & parts of Bohemia, rocks & trees grotesquely mingled together – The Coast is like the Corniche above Monaco, without its cultivation, but with wood – where the Mts are close to the sea, its nature surpasses any thing I have seen since, <15> even Corniche, Riviera, Salerno & Corfu – but where the vallies open, it is inferior – There is nothing like Mentone, there are no Alps behind, but all there is, is as fine as 3 & 4000 ft (& the sea) can afford – the only Mt of 5000 – is rather too far from the coast. But if you could coast Mingrelia I think you wd find everything. Dauria is the frontier of Siberia & China Nerchinsk is in it or within a few hundred miles. Tauria is the ill shaped Govt of the old Little Tartary including the Crimea I could chalk you out a delightful tour of a year going by Mediterranean & returning by the Euxine Hungary &c – but you shd go while Woronzoff <16> is Govr of all that part – His power property & connexions in so many countries could help a traveller over more ground than any other person in Europe –
Yrs
W T H F S
Henry Talbot Esq
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. WTFS became Secretary of Legation in Florence in 1825. See Doc. No: 01250, which dates this document to 1825.
2. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP.
3. John Strangways travelled to Smyrna, Constantinople etc. on the way to Egypt which he reached in 1825. [See Doc. No: 01333, and Doc. No: 01339].
4. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
5. Sir Christopher Cole (1770–1836), Captain, MP & naval officer.
6. Joseph (Giuseppe) Raddi (1770–1829), Italian botanist.
7. Tulipa Gesneriana.
8. Tulipa Oculus Solis.
9. Eugenio de Reboul, botanist.
10. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
11. Pulmonaria officinalis or angustifolia.
12. Text obscured by seal.
13. Text obscured by seal.
14. So called.
15. See Doc. No: 01309 of September 1825.
16. Mikhail Semenovich Woronzoff or Vorontsov (1782–1856), appointed governor-general of the southern provinces of Russia in 1823.