Transcription

[Page 229]

I have a promise of [indecipherable] large [indecipherable] gladiolus for you & will send it by next mail as well as some other bulbs.

Pendell Court, Surrey
April 13th 1874

My very dear Friend

I have treated you very badly but I hope in future to be better behaved.  I have been very much occupied since my return & have [indecipherable] a very unfortunate habit of putting off letter writing to the last moment.  I never can persuade myself to write in fact unless with the spear of necessity in my side.  I promised you a long description of "Peradeniya" the Botanic Garden of Kandy, but have postponed it so long that I am [indecipherable] in full length in last [indecipherable] Gardeners Chronicle.  It is even more beautiful than it is [indecipherable] to be.  Thwaites has [indecipherable] the native jungle with in his plantations of the plants from all parts of the Tropics through which he has passed including Roads though large enough for carriages.  Then most lovely woods interspersed with lawns & glades form a whole that a happy man may dream of, but is more likely in his waking moments to [indecipherable].  One thing immediately struck me [indecipherable] finding myself in one of the exquisite groves, that Doré & other illustrators of Paradise Lost should [indecipherable] out to these

Sir W. Macarthur M.L.C.

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