Then again, in a surveying ship you can work. In an ordinary frigate if a fellow has the talents of all the scientific men from Archimedes downwards compressed into his own peculiar skull they are all lost. Even if it were possible to study in a midshipmen's berth, you have not room in your "chat" for more than a dozen books. But in the "Rattlesnake" the whole poop is to be converted into a large chart-room with bookshelves and tables and plenty of light. There I may read, draw, or microscopise at pleasure, and as to books, I have a carte blanche from the Captain to take as many as I please, of which permission we shall avail ourself—rather—and besides all this, from the peculiar way in which I obtained this appointment, I shall have a much wider swing than assistant surgeons in general get. I can see clearly that certain branches of the natural history work will fall into my hands if I manage properly through Sir John Richardson, who has shown himself a very kind friend all throughout, and also through Captain Stanley I have been introduced to several eminent zoologists—to Owen and Gray and Forbes of King's College. From all these men much is to be learnt which becomes peculiarly my own, and can of course only be used and applied by me. From Forbes especially I have learned and shall learn much with respect to dredging operations (which bear on many of the most interesting points of zoology). In consequence of this I may very likely be entrusted with the carrying of them out, and all that is so much the more towards my opportunities. Again, I have learnt the calotype process for the express purpose of managing the calotype apparatus, for which Captain Stanley has applied to the Government.
And having once for all enumerated all these meaner prospects of mere personal advancement, I must confess I do glory in the prospect of being able to give myself up to my own favourite pursuits without thereby neglecting the proper duties of life. And then perhaps by the following of my favourite motto:—
Wie das Gestirn,
Ohne Hast,
Ohne Rast:—
something may be done, and some of Sister Lizzie's fond imaginations turn out not altogether untrue.
I perceive that I have nearly finished a dreadfully egotistical letter, but I know you like to hear of my doings, so shall not apologise. Kind regards to the Doctor and kisses to the babbies. Write me a long letter all about yourselves.
Your affectionate brother,
T.H. Huxley.
[One more description to complete the sketch of his quarters on board the "Rattlesnake." It is from a letter to his mother, written at Plymouth, where the "Rattlesnake" put in after leaving Portsmouth. The comparison with the ordinary quarters of an assistant-surgeon, and the shifts to which a studious man might be put in his endeavour to find a quiet spot to work in, have a flavour of Mr. Midshipman Easy about them to relieve the deplorable reality of his situation:—]
You will be very glad to know that I am exceedingly comfortable here. My cabin has now got into tolerable order, and what with my books—which are, I am happy to say, not a few—my gay curtain and the spicy oilcloth which will be down on the floor, looks most respectable. Furthermore, although it is an unquestionably dull day I have sufficient light to write here, without the least trouble, to read, or even if necessary, to use my microscope. I went to see a friend of mine on board the "Recruit" the other day, and truly I hugged myself when I compared my position with his. The berth where he and seven others eat their daily bread is hardly bigger than my cabin, except in height—and, of course, he has to sleep in a hammock. My friend is rather an eccentric character, and, being missed in the ship, was discovered the other day reading in the main-top—the only place, as he said, sufficiently retired for study. And this is really no exaggeration. If I had no cabin I should take to drinking in a month.
[It was during this period of waiting that he attended his first meeting of the British Association, which was held in 1846 at Southampton. Here he obtained from Professor Edward Forbes one of his living specimens of Amphioxus lanceolatus, and made an examination of its blood. The result was a short paper read at the following meeting of the Association, which showed that in the composition of its blood this lowly vertebrate approached very near the invertebrates. ("Examination of the Corpuscles of the Blood of Amphioxus lanceolatus" "British Association Report" 1847 2 page 95 and "Scientific Memoirs" 1.)
CHAPTER 1.3.
1846-1849.
[It is a curious coincidence that, like two other leaders of science, Charles Darwin and Joseph Dalton Hooker, their close friend Huxley began his scientific career on board one of Her Majesty's ships. He was, however, to learn how little the British Government of that day, for all its professions, really cared for the advancement of knowledge. (The key to this attitude on the part of the Admiralty is to be found in the scathing description in Briggs' "Naval Administration from 1827 to 1892" page 92, of the ruinous parsimony of either political party at this time with regard to the navy—a policy the results of which were only too apparent at the outbreak of the Crimean war. I quote a couple of sentences, "The navy estimates were framed upon the lowest scale, and reduction pushed to the very verge of danger." "Even from a financial point of view the course pursued was the reverse of economical, and ultimately led to wasteful and increased expenditure." Thus the liberal professions of the Admiralty were not fulfilled; its good will gave the young surgeon three and a half years of leave from active service; with an obdurate treasury, it could do no more.) But of the immense value to himself of these years of hard training, the discipline, the knowledge of men and of the capabilities of life, even without more than the barest necessities of existence—of this he often spoke. As he puts it in his Autobiography:—]
Life on board Her Majesty's ships in those days was a very different affair from what it is now, and ours was exceptionally rough, as we were often many months without receiving letters or seeing any civilised people but ourselves. In exchange, we had the interest of being about the last voyagers, I suppose, to whom it could be possible to meet with people who knew nothing of firearms—as we did on the south coast of New Guinea—and of making acquaintance with a variety of interesting savage and semi-civilised people. But, apart from experience of this kind and the opportunities offered for scientific work, to me, personally, the cruise was extremely valuable. It was good for me to live under sharp discipline; to be down on the realities of existence by living on bare necessaries: to find how extremely well worth living life seemed to be when one woke up from a night's rest on a soft plank, with the sky for canopy, and cocoa and weevilly biscuit the sole prospect for breakfast; and, more especially, to learn to work for the sake of what I got for myself out of it, even if it all went to the bottom and I along with it. My brother officers were as good fellows as sailors ought to be and generally are, but, naturally, they neither knew nor cared anything about my pursuits, nor understood why I should be so zealous in pursuit of the objects which my friends, the middies, christened "Buffons," after the title conspicuous on a volume of the "Suites a Buffon," which stood on my shelf in the chart-room.
[On the whole, life among the company of officers was satisfactory enough. (The Assistant-Surgeon messed in the gun-room with the middies. A man in the midst of a lot of boys, with hardly any grown-up companions, often has a rather unenviable position; but, says Captain Heath, who was one of these middies, Huxley's constant good spirits and fun, when he was not absorbed in his work, his freedom from any assumption of superiority over them, made the boys his good comrades and allies.) Huxley's immediate superior, John Thompson, was a man of sterling worth; and Captain Stanley was an excellent commander, and sympathetic withal. Among Huxley's messmates there was only one, the ship's clerk, whoever made himself actively disagreeable, and a quarrel with him only served to bring into relief the young surgeon's integrity and directness of action. After some dispute, in which he had been worsted, this gentleman sought to avenge himself by dropping mysterious hints as to Huxley's conduct before joining the ship. He had been treasurer of his mess; there had been trouble about the accounts, and a scandal had barely been averted. This was not long in coming to Huxley's ears. Furiously indignant as he was, he did not lose his self-control; but promptly inviting the members of the wardroom to meet as a court of honour, laid his case before them, and challenged his accuser to bring forward any tittle of evidence in support of his insinuations. The latter had nothing to say for himself, and made a formal retraction and apology. A signed account of the proceedings was kept by the first officer, and a duplicate by Huxley, as a defence against any possible revival of the slander.
On December 3, 1846, the "Rattlesnake" frigate left Spithead, but touched again at Plymouth to ship 65,000 pounds sterling of specie for the Cape. This delay was no pleasure to the young Huxley; it only served to renew the pain of parting from home, so that, after writing a last letter to reassure his mother as to the comfort of his present quarters, he was glad to lose sight of the English coast on the 11th.
Madeira was reached on the 18th. On the 26th they sailed for Rio de Janeiro, where they stayed from January 23 to February 2, 1847. Here Huxley had his first experience of tropical dredging in Botafago Bay, with Macgillivray, naturalist to the expedition. It was a memorable occasion, the more so, because in the absence of a sieve they were compelled to use their hands as strainers the first day. Happily the want was afterwards supplied by a meat cover. From the following letter it seems that several prizes of value were taken in the dredge:—]
Rio de Janeiro, January 24, 1847.
My dear Mother,
Four weeks of lovely weather and uninterrupted fair winds brought us to this southern fairyland. In my last letter I told you a considerable yarn about Madeira, I guess, and so for fear lest you should imagine me scenery mad I will spare you any description of Rio Harbour. Suffice it to say that it contends with the Bay of Naples for the title of the most beautiful place in the world. It must beat Naples in luxuriance and variety of vegetation, but from all accounts, to say nothing of George's [his eldest brother] picture, falls behind it in the colours of sky and sea, that of the latter being in the harbour and for some distance outside of a dirty olive green like the washings of a painter's palette.
We have come in for the purpose of effecting some trifling repairs, which, though not essential to the safety of the ship, will nevertheless naturally enhance the comfort of its inmates. This you will understand when I tell you that in consequence of these same defects I have had water an inch or two deep in my cabin, wish-washing about ever since we left Madeira.
We crossed the line on the 13th of this month, and as one of the uninitiated I went through the usual tomfoolery practised on that occasion. The affair has been too often described for me to say anything about it. I had the good luck to be ducked and shaved early, and of course took particular care to do my best in serving out the unhappy beggars who had to follow. I enjoyed the fun well enough at the time, but unquestionably it is on all grounds a most pernicious custom. It swelled our sick list to double the usual amount, and one poor fellow, I am sorry to say, died of the effects of pleurisy then contracted.
We have been quite long enough at sea now to enable me to judge how I shall get on in the ship, and to form a very clear idea of how it fits me and how I fit it. In the first place I am exceedingly well and exceedingly contented with my lot. My opinion of the advantages lying open to me increases rather than otherwise as I see my way about me. I am on capital terms with all the superior officers, and I find them ready to give me all facilities. I have a place for my books and microscope in the chart room, and there I sit and read in the morning much as though I were in my rooms in Agar Street. My immediate superior, Johnny Thompson, is a long-headed good fellow without a morsel of humbug about him—a man whom I thoroughly respect, both morally and intellectually. I think it will be my fault if we are not fast friends through the commission. One friend on board a ship is as much as anybody has a right to expect.
It is just the interval between the sea and the land breezes, the sea like glass, and not a breath stirring. I shall become soup if I do not go on deck. Temperature in sun at noon 86 in shade, 139 in sun. N.B.—It has been up to 89 in shade, 139 in sun since this.
March 28, 1847.
I see I concluded with a statement of temperature. Since then it has been considerably better—140 in sun; however, in the shade it rarely rises above 86 or so, and when the sea or land breezes are blowing this is rather pleasant than otherwise.
I have been ashore two or three times. The town is like most Portuguese towns, hot and stinking, the odours here being improved by a strong flavour of nigger from the slaves, of whom there is an immense number. They seem to do all the work, and their black skins shine in the sun as though they had been touched up with Warren, 30 Strand. They are mostly in capital condition, and on the whole look happier than the corresponding class in England, the manufacturing and agricultural poor, I mean. I have a much greater respect for them than for their beastly Portuguese masters, than whom there is not a more vile, ignorant, and besotted nation under the sun. I only regret that such a glorious country as this should be in such hands. Had Brazil been colonised by Englishmen, it would by this time have rivalled our Indian Empire.
The naturalist Macgillivray and I have had several excursions under pretence of catching butterflies, etc. On the whole, however, I think we have been most successful in imbibing sherry cobbler, which you get here in great perfection. By the way, tell Cooke [his brother-in-law], with my kindest regards, that — is a lying old thief, many of the things he told me about Macgillivray, e.g., being an ignoramus in natural history, etc. etc., having proved to be lies. He is at any rate a very good ornithologist, and, I can testify, is exceedingly zealous in his vocation as a collector. As in these (points) Mr. —'s statements are unquestionably false, I must confess I feel greatly inclined to disbelieve his other assertions.
March 29.
We sail hence on Sunday for the Cape, so I will finish up. If you have not already written to me at that place, direct your letters to H.M.S. "Rattlesnake," Sydney (to wait arrival). We shall probably be at the Cape some weeks surveying, thence shall be take ourselves to the Mauritius, and leave a card on Paul and Virginia, thence on to Sydney; but it is of no use to direct to any place but the last.
P.S.—The Rattlesnakes are not idle. We shall most likely have something to say to the English savans before long. If I have any frizz in the fire I will let you know.
[He gives a fuller account of this piece of work in a letter to his sister, dated Sydney, August 1, 1847. The two papers in question, as appears from the briefest notice in the "Proceedings of the Linnean Society," ascribing them to William (!) Huxley, were read in 1849:—]
In my last letter I think I mentioned to you that I had worked out and sent home to the President of the Linnean Society, through Captain Stanley, an account of Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war as it is called, an animal whose structure and affinities had never been worked out. The careful investigation I made gave rise to several new ideas covering the whole class of animals to which this creature belongs, and these ideas I have had the good fortune to have had many opportunities of working out in the course of our subsequent wanderings, so that I am provided with materials for a second paper far more considerable in extent, and embracing an altogether wider field. This second paper is now partly in esse—that is, written out—and partly in posse—that is, in my head; but I shall send it before leaving. Its title will be "Observations upon the Anatomy of the Diphydae, and upon the Unity of Organisation of the Diphydae and Physophoridae," and it will have lots of figures to illustrate it. Now when we return from the north I hope to have collected materials for a much bigger paper than either of these, and to which they will serve as steps. If my present anticipations turn out correct, this paper will achieve one of the great ends of Zoology and Anatomy, namely, the reduction of two or three apparently widely separated and incongruous groups into modifications of the single type, every step of the reasoning being based upon anatomical facts. There! Think yourself lucky you have only got that to read instead of the slight abstract of all three papers with which I had some intention of favouring you. [These papers are to be found in volume 1 of the "Scientific Memoirs" of T.H. Huxley page 9.]
But five years ago you threw a slipper after me for luck on my first examination, and I must have you to do it for everything else.
[At the Cape a stay of a month was made, from March 6 to April 10, and certain surveying work was done, after which the "Rattlesnake" sailed for Mauritius. In spite of the fact that the novelty of tropical scenery had worn off, the place made a deep impression. He writes to his mother, May 15, 1847:—]
After a long and somewhat rough passage from the Cape, we made the highland of the Isle of France on the afternoon of the 3rd of this month, and passing round the northern extremity of the island, were towed into Port Louis by the handsomest of tugs about noon on the 4th. In my former letter I have spoken to you of the beauty of the places we have visited, of the picturesque ruggedness of Madeira, the fine luxuriance of Rio, and the rude and simple grandeur of South Africa. Much of my admiration has doubtless arisen from the novelty of these tropical or semitropical scenes, and would be less vividly revived by a second visit. I have become in a manner blase with fine sights and something of a critic. All this is to lead you to believe that I have really some grounds for the raptures I am going into presently about Mauritius. In truth it is a complete paradise, and if I had nothing better to do, I should pick up some pretty French Eve (and there are plenty) and turn Adam. N.B. There are NO serpents in the island.
This island is, you know, the scene of St. Pierre's beautiful story of Paul and Virginia, over which I suppose most people have sentimentalised at one time or another of their lives. Until we reached here I did not know that the tale was like the lady's improver—a fiction founded on fact, and that Paul and Virginia were at one time flesh and blood, and that their veritable dust was buried at Pamplemousses in a spot considered as one of the lions of the place, and visited as classic ground. Now, though I never was greatly given to the tender and sentimental, and have not had any tendencies that way greatly increased by the elegancies and courtesies of a midshipman's berth,—not to say that, as far as I recollect, Mdlle. Virginia was a bit of a prude, and M. Paul a pump,—yet were it but for old acquaintance sake, I determined on making a pilgrimage. Pamplemousses is a small village about seven miles from Port Louis, and the road to it is lined by rows of tamarind trees, of cocoanut trees, and sugarcanes. I started early in the morning in order to avoid the great heat of the middle of the day, and having breakfasted at Port Louis, made an early couple of hours' walk of it, meeting on my way numbers of the coloured population hastening to market in all the varieties of their curious Hindoo costume. After some trouble I found my way to the "Tombeaux" as they call them. They are situated in a garden at the back of a house now in the possession of one Mr. Geary, an English mechanist, who puts up half the steam engines for the sugar mills in the island. The garden is now an utter wilderness, but still very beautiful; round it runs a grassy path, and in the middle of the path on each side towards the further extremity of the garden is a funeral urn supported on a pedestal, and as dilapidated as the rest of the affair. These dilapidations, as usual, are the work of English visitors, relic-hunters, who are as shameless here as elsewhere. I was exceedingly pleased on the whole with my excursion, and when I returned I made a drawing of the place, which I will send some day or other.
Since this I have made, in company with our purser and a passenger, Mr. King, a regular pedestrian trip to see some very beautiful falls up the country.
[Leaving Mauritius on May 17, they prolonged their voyage to Sydney by being requisitioned to take more specie to Hobart Town, so that Sydney was not reached until July 16, eight months since they had had news of home.
The three months spent in this first visit to Sydney proved to be one of the most vital periods in the young surgeon's career. From boyhood up, vaguely conscious of unrest, of great powers within him working to find expression, he had yet been to a certain extent driven in upon himself. He had been somewhat isolated from those of his own age by his eagerness for problems about which they cared nothing; and the tendency to solitude, the habit of outward reserve imposed upon an unusually warm nature, were intensified by the fact that he grew up in surroundings not wholly congenial. One member alone of his family felt with him that complete and vivid sympathy which is so necessary to the full development of such a nature. When he was fourteen this sister married and left home, but the bond between them was not broken. In some ways it was strengthened by the lad's love for her children; by his grief, scarcely less than her own, at the death of her eldest little girl. Moreover they were brought into close companionship for a considerable time when, after his dismal period of apprenticeship at Rotherhithe—to which he could never look back without a shudder—he came to work under her husband. She had encouraged him in his studies; had urged him to work for the Botanical prize at Sydenham College; had brightened his life with her sympathy, and believed firmly in the brilliant future which awaited him—a belief which for her sake, if for nothing else, he was eager to justify by his best exertions.
He had not had, so far, much opportunity of entering the social world; but his visit to Sydney gave him an opportunity of entering a good society to which his commission in the navy was a sufficient introduction. He was eager to find friendships if he could, for his reserve was anything but misanthropic. It was not long before he made the acquaintance of William Macleay, a naturalist of wide research and great speculative ability; and struck up a close friendship with William Fanning, one of the leading merchants of the town, a friendship which was to have momentous consequences. For it was at Fanning's house that he met his future wife, Miss Henrietta Anne Heathorn, for whom he was to serve longer and harder than Jacob thought to serve for Rachel, but who was to be his help and stay for forty years, in his struggles ready to counsel, in adversity to comfort; the critic whose judgment he valued above almost any, and whose praise he cared most to win; his first care and his latest thought, the other self, whose union with him was a supreme example of mutual sincerity and devotion.
It was a case of love, if not actually at first sight, yet of very rapid growth when he came to learn the quiet strength and tenderness of her nature as displayed in the management of her sister's household. A certain simplicity and directness united with an unusual degree of cultivation, had attracted him from the first. She had been two years at school in Germany, and her knowledge of German and of German literature brought them together on common ground. Things ran very smoothly at the beginning, and the young couple, whose united ages amounted to forty-four years, became engaged.
The marriage was to take place on his promotion to the rank of full surgeon—a promotion he hoped to attain speedily at the conclusion of the voyage on the strength of his scientific work, for this was the inducement held out by the Admiralty to energetic subalterns. The following letter to his sister describes the situation:—]
Sydney Harbour, March 21, 1848.
…I have deferred writing to you in the hope of knowing something from yourself of your doings and whereabouts, and now that we are on the eve of departing for a long cruise in Torres Straits, I will no longer postpone the giving you some account of "was ist geschehen" on this side of the world. We spent three months in Sydney, and a gay three months of it we had,—nothing but balls and parties the whole time. In this corner of the universe, where men of war are rather scarce, even the old "Rattlesnake" is rather a lion, and her officers are esteemed accordingly. Besides, to tell you the truth, we are rather agreeable people than otherwise, and can manage to get up a very decent turn-out on board on occasion. What think you of your grave, scientific brother turning out a ball-goer and doing the "light fantastic" to a great extent? It is a great fact, I assure you. But there is a method in my madness. I found it exceedingly disagreeable to come to a great place like Sydney and think there was not a soul who cared whether I was alive or dead, so I determined to go into what society was to be had and see if I could not pick up a friend or two among the multitude of the empty and frivolous. I am happy to say that I have had more success than I hoped for or deserved, and then as now, two or three houses where I can go and feel myself at home at all times. But my "home" in Sydney is the house of my good friend Mr. Fanning, one of the first merchants in the place. But thereby hangs a tale which, of all people in the world, I must tell you. Mrs. Fanning has a sister, and the dear little sister and I managed to fall in love with one another in the most absurd manner after seeing one another—I will not tell you how few times, lest you should laugh. Do you remember how you used to talk to me about choosing a wife? Well, I think that my choice would justify even your fastidiousness…I think you will understand how happy her love ought to and does make me. I fear that in this respect indeed the advantage is on my side, for my present wandering life and uncertain position must necessarily give her many an anxious thought. Our future is indeed none of the clearest. Three years at the very least must elapse before the "Rattlesnake" returns to England, and then unless I can write myself into my promotion or something else, we shall be just where we were. Nevertheless I have the strongest persuasion that four years hence I shall be married and settled in England. We shall see.
I am getting on capitally at present. Habit, inclination, and now a sense of duty keep me at work, and the nature of our cruise affords me opportunities such as none but a blind man would fail to make use of. I have sent two or three papers home already to be published, which I have great hopes will throw light upon some hitherto obscure branches of natural history, and I have just finished a more important one, which I intend to get read at the Royal Society. The other day I submitted it to William Macleay (the celebrated propounder of the Quinary system), who has a beautiful place near Sydney, and, I hear, "werry much approves what I have done." All this goes to the comforting side of the question, and gives me hope of being able to follow out my favourite pursuits in course of time, without hindrance to what is now the main object of my life. I tell Netty to look to being a "Frau Professorin" one of these odd days, and she has faith, as I believe would have if I told her I was going to be Prime Minister.
We go to the northward again about the 23rd of this month [April], and shall be away for ten or twelve months surveying in Torres Straits. I believe we are to refit in Port Essington, and that will be the only place approaching to civilisation that we shall see for the whole of that time; and after July or August next, when a provision ship is to come up to us, we shall not even get letters. I hope and trust I shall hear from you before then. Do not suppose that my new ties have made me forgetful of old ones. On the other hand, these are if anything strengthened. Does not my dearest Nettie love you as I do! and do I not often wish that you could see and love and esteem her as I know you would. We often talk about you, and I tell her stories of old times.
[Another letter, a year later, gives his mother the answers to a string of questions which, mother-like, she had asked him, thirsting for exact and minute information about her future daughter-in-law:—]
Sydney, February 1, 1849.
[After describing how he had just come back from a nine months' cruise)—First and foremost, my dear mother, I must thank you for your very kind letter of September 1848. I read the greater part of it to Nettie, who was as much pleased as I with your kindly wishes towards both of us. Now I suppose I must do my best to answer your questions. First, as to age, Nettie is about three months younger than myself—that is the difference in OUR years, but she is IN FACT as much younger than her years as I am older than mine. Next, as to complexion she is exceedingly fair, with the Saxon yellow hair and blue eyes. Then as to face, I really don't know whether she is pretty or not. I have never been able to decide the matter in my own mind. Sometimes I think she is, and sometimes I wonder how the idea ever came into my head. Whether or not, her personal appearance has nothing whatever to do with the hold she has upon my mind, for I have seen hundreds of prettier women. But I never met with so sweet a temper, so self-sacrificing and affectionate a disposition, or so pure and womanly a mind, and from the perfectly intimate footing on which I stand with her family I have plenty of opportunities of judging. As I tell her, the only great folly I am aware of her being guilty of was the leaving her happiness in the hands of a man like myself, struggling upwards and certain of nothing.
As to my future intentions I can say very little about them. With my present income, of course, marriage is rather a bad look out, but I do not think it would be at all fair towards Nettie herself to leave this country without giving her a wife's claim upon me…It is very unlikely I shall ever remain in the colony. Nothing but a very favourable chance could induce me to do so.
Much must depend upon how things go in England. If my various papers meet with any success, I may perhaps be able to leave the service. At present, however, I have not heard a word of anything I have sent. Professor Forbes has, I believe, published some of Macgillivary's letters to him, but he has apparently forgotten to write to Macgillivray himself, or to me. So I shall certainly send him nothing more, especially as Mr. Macleay (of this place, and a great man in the naturalist world) has offered to get anything of mine sent to the Zoological Society.
[In the paper mentioned in the letter of March 21, above ("On the Anatomy and Affinities of the Family of the Medusae"), Huxley aimed at] "giving broad and general views of the whole class, considered as organised upon a given type, and inquiring into its relations with other families," [unlike previous observers whose patience and ability had been devoted rather to] "stating matters of detail concerning particular genera and species." [At the outset, section 8 ("Science Memoirs" 1 11), he states—]
I would wish to lay particular stress upon the composition of this (the stomach) and other organs of the Medusae out of TWO DISTINCT MEMBRANES, as I believe that it is one of the essential peculiarities of their structure, and that a knowledge of the fact is of great importance in investigating their homologies. I will call these two membranes as such, and independently of any modifications into particular organs, "foundation membranes."
[And in section 56 (page 23) one of the general conclusions which he deduces from his observations, is]
That a Medusa consists essentially of two membranes enclosing a variously-shaped cavity, inasmuch as its various organs are so composed,
[a peculiarity shared by certain other families of zoophytes. This is a point which that eminent authority, Professor G.J. Allman, had in his mind when he wrote to call my attention
"to a fact which has been overlooked in all the notices I have seen, and which I regard as one of the greatest claims of his splendid work on the recognition of zoologists. I refer to his discovery that the body of the Medusae is essentially composed of two membranes, an outer and an inner, and his recognition of these as the homologues of the two primary germinal leaflets in the vertebrate embryo. Now this discovery stands at the very basis of a philosophic zoology, and of a true conception of the affinities of animals. It is the ground on which Haeckel has founded his famous Gastraea Theory, and without it Kowalesky could never have announced his great discovery of the affinity of the Ascidians and Vertebrates, by which zoologists had been startled."]
CHAPTER 1.4.
1848-1850.
[The whole cruise of the "Rattlesnake" lasted almost precisely four years, her stay in Australian waters nearly three. Of this time altogether eleven months were spent at Sydney, namely, July 16 to October 11, 1847; January 14 to February 2, and March 9 to April 29, 1848; January 24 to May 8, 1849; and February 14 to May 2, 1850. The three months of the first northern cruise were spent in the survey of the Inshore Passage—the passage, that is, within the Great Barrier Reef for ships proceeding from India to Sydney. In 1848, while waiting for the right season to visit Torres Straits, a short cruise was made in February and March, to inspect the lighthouses in Bass' Straits. It was on this occasion that Huxley visited Melbourne, then an insignificant town, before the discovery of gold had brought a rush of immigrants.
The second northern cruise of 1848, which lasted nine months, had for its object the completion of the survey of the Inner Passage as far as New Guinea and the adjoining archipelago. The third cruise in 1849-50 again lasted nine months, and continued the survey in Torres Straits, the Louisiade archipelago, and the south-eastern part of New Guinea. After this the original plan was to make a fourth cruise, filling up the charts of the Inner Passage on the east coast, and surveying the straits of Alass between Lombok and Sumbawa in the Malay Archipelago; then, instead of returning to Sydney, to proceed to Singapore and so home by the Cape. But these plans were altered by the untimely death of Captain Stanley on March 13, and the "Rattlesnake" sailed for England direct in May 1850.
There was a great monotony about these cruises, particularly to those who were not constantly engaged in the active work of surveying. The ship sailed slowly from place to place, hunting out reefs and islets; a stay of a few days would be made at some lonely island, while charting expeditions went out in the boats or supplies of water and fresh fruits were laid in. On the second expedition there were two cases of scurvy on board by the time the mail from Sydney reached the ship at Cape York with letters and lime-juice, the first reminder of civilisation for four months and a half. On this cruise there was an unusual piece of interest in Kennedy's ill-fated expedition, which the "Rattlesnake" landed in Rockingham Bay, and trusted to meet again at Cape York. Happy it was for Huxley that his duties forbade him to accept Kennedy's proposal to join the expedition. After months of weary struggles in the dense scrub, Kennedy himself, who had pushed on for help with his faithful black man Jacky, was speared by the natives when almost in sight of Cape York; Jack barely managed to make his way there through his enemies, and guided a party to the rescue of the two starved and exhausted survivors of the disease-stricken camp by the Sugarloaf Hill. It was barely time. Another hour, and they too would have been killed by the crowd of blackfellows who hovered about in hopes of booty, and were only dispersed for a moment by the rescue party.
On the third cruise there were a few adventures more directly touching the "Rattlesnake." Twice the landing parties, including Huxley, were within an ace of coming to blows with the islanders of the Louisiades, and on one occasion a portly member of the gun-room, being cut off by these black gentry, only saved his life by parting with all his clothes as presents to them, and keeping them amused by an impromptu dance in a state of nature under the broiling sun, until a party came to his relief. At Cape York also, a white woman was rescued who had been made prisoner by the blacks from a wreck, and had lived among them for several years. Here, too, Huxley and Macgillivray made a trip inland, and were welcomed by a native chief, who saw in the former the returning spirit of his dead brother.
Throughout the voyage Huxley was busy with his pencil, and many lithographs from his drawings illustrate the account of the voyage afterwards published. As to his scientific work, he was accumulating a large stock of observations, but felt rather sore about the papers which he had already sent home, for no word had reached him as to their fate, not even that they had been received or looked over by Forbes, to whom they had been consigned. As a matter of fact, they had not been neglected, as he was to find out on his return; but meanwhile the state of affairs was not reassuring to a man whose dearest hopes were bound up in the reception he could win for these and similar researches. Altogether, it was with no little joy that he turned his back on the sweltering heat of Torres Straits, on the great mountains of New Guinea, the Owen Stanley range, which had remained hidden from D'Urville in the "Astrolabe" to be discovered by the explorers on the "Rattlesnake," and the far stretching archipelago of the Louisiades, one tiny island in which still bears the name of Huxley, after the assistant-surgeon of the "Rattlesnake."
A few extracts from letters of the time will give a more vivid idea of what the voyage was like. The first is from a letter to his mother, dated February 1, 1849:—]
…I suppose you have wondered at the long intervals of my letters, but my silence has been forced. I wrote from Rockingham Bay in May, and from Cape York in October. After leaving the latter place we have had no communication with any one but the folks at Port Essington, which is a mere military post, without any certain means of communication with England. We were ten weeks on our passage from Port Essington to Sydney and touched nowhere, so that you may imagine we were pretty well tired of the sea by the time we reached Port Jackson.
Thank God we are now safely anchored in our old quarters, and for the next three months shall enjoy a few of those comforts that make life worth the living…
The only place we have visited since my last budget to you was Port Essington, a military post which has been an object of much attention for some time past in connection with the steam navigation between Sydney and India. It is about the most useless, miserable, ill-managed hole in Her Majesty's dominions. Placed fifteen miles inland on the swampy banks of an estuary out of reach of the sea breezes, it is the most insufferably hot and enervating place imaginable. The temperature of the water alongside the ship was from 88 to 90, i.e. about that of a moderately warm bath, so that you may fancy what it is on land. Added to this, the commandant is a litigious old fool, always at war with his officers, and endeavouring to make the place as much of a hell morally as it is physically. Little more than two years ago a detachment of sixty men came out to the settlement. At the parade on the Sunday I was there; there were just ten men present. The rest were invalided, dead, or sick. I have no hesitation in saying that half of this was the result of ill-management. The climate in itself is not particularly unhealthy. We were all glad to get away from the place.
[Another is to his sister, under date Sydney, March 14, 1849:—]
By the way, I may as well give you a short account of our cruise. We started from here last May to survey what is called the inner passage to India. You must know that the east coast of Australia has running parallel to it at distances of from five miles to seventy or eighty an almost continuous line of coral reefs, the Great Barrier as it is called. Outside this line is the great Pacific, inside is a space varying in width as above, and cut up by little islands and detached reefs. Now to get to India from Sydney, ships must go either inside or outside the Great Barrier. The inside passage has been called the Inner Route in consequence of its desirability for steamers, and our business has been to mark out this Inner Route safely and clearly among the labyrinth-like islands and reefs within the Barrier. And a parlous dull business it was for those who, like myself, had no necessary and constant occupation. Fancy for five mortal months shifting from patch to patch of white sand in latitude from 17 to 10 south, living on salt pork and beef, and seeing no mortal face but our own sweet countenances considerably obscured by the long beard and moustaches with which, partly from laziness and partly from comfort, we had become adorned. I cultivated a peak in Charles I style, which imparted a remarkably peculiar and triste expression to my sunburnt phiz, heightened by the fact that the aforesaid beard was, I regret to say it, of a very questionable auburn—my messmates called it red.
We convoyed a land expedition as far as the Rockingham Bay in 17 south under a Mr. Kennedy, which was to work its way up to Cape York in 11 south and there meet us. A fine noble fellow poor Kennedy was too. I was a good deal with him at Rockingham Bay, and indeed accompanied him in the exploring trips which he made for some four or five days in order to see how the land lay about him. In fact we got on so well together that he wanted me much to accompany him and join the ship again at Cape York, and if the Service would have permitted of my absence I should certainly have done so. But it was well I did not. Out of thirteen men composing the party but three remain alive. The rest have perished by starvation or the spears of the natives. Poor Kennedy himself had, in company with the black fellow attached to the party, by dint of incredible exertions, pushed on until he came within sight of the provision vessel waiting his arrival at Cape York. But here, within grasp of his object, a large party of natives attacked and killed him. The black fellow alone reached Cape York with the news. The other two men who were saved were the sole survivors of the party Kennedy left behind him at a spot near the coast, and were picked up by the provision vessel when she returned.
You may be sure I am not sorry to return home. I say home advisedly, for my friend Fanning's house is as completely my home as it well can be. And then Nettie had not heard anything of me for six months, so that I have been petted and spoiled ever since we came in…as I tell her I fear she has rested her happiness on a very insecure foundation; but she is full of hope and confidence, and to me her love is the faith that moveth mountains. We have, as you may be sure, a thousand difficulties in our way, but like Danton I take for my motto, "De l'audace et encore de l'audace et toujours de l'audace," and look forward to a happy termination, nothing doubting.
[To his mother (announcing the probable time of his return).]
Sydney, February 11, 1850.
I cannot at all realise the idea of our return. We have been leading such a semi-savage life for years past, such a wandering nomadic existence, that any other seems in a manner unnatural to me. Time was when I should have looked upon our return with unmixed joy; but so many new and strong ties have arisen to unite me with Sydney, that now when the anchor is getting up for England, I scarcely know whether to rejoice or to grieve. You must not be angry, my dear Mother; I have none the less affection for you or any other of those whom I love in England—only a very great deal for a certain little lassie whom I must leave behind me without clearly seeing when we are to meet again. You must remember the Scripture as my excuse, "A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his" (I wish I could add) wife. Our long cruises are fine times for reflection, and during the last I determined that we would be terribly prudent and get married about 1870, or the Greek Kalends, or, what is about the same thing, whenever I am afflicted with the malheur de richesses.
People talk about the satisfaction of an approving conscience. Mine approves me intensely; but I'll be hanged if I see the satisfaction of it. I feel much more inclined to swear "worse than our armies in Flanders."…So far as my private doings are concerned, I hear very satisfactory news of them. I heard from an old messmate of mine at Haslar the other day that Dr. MacWilliam, F.R.S., one of our deputy-inspectors, had been talking about one of my papers, and gave him to understand that it was to be printed. Furthermore, he is a great advocate for the claims of assistant surgeons to ward-room rank, and all that sort of stuff, and, I am told, quoted me as an example! Henceforward I look upon the learned doctor as a man of sound sense and discrimination! Without joking, however, I am glad to have come under his notice, as he may be of essential use to me. I find myself getting horribly selfish, looking at everything with regard to the influence it may have on my grand objects.
[Further descriptions of the voyage are to be drawn from an article in the "Westminster Review" for January 1854 (volume 5), in which, under the title of "Science at Sea," Huxley reviewed the "Voyage of the 'Rattlesnake'" by Macgillivray, the naturalist to the expedition, which had recently appeared. This book gave very few descriptions of the incidents and life on board, and so drew in many ways a colourless picture of the expedition. This defect the reviewer sought to remedy by giving extracts from the so-called "unpublished correspondence" of one of the officers—sketches apparently written for the occasion—as well as from an equally unpublished but more real journal kept by the same hand.
The description of the ship herself, of her inadequate equipment for the special purposes she was to carry out, of the officers' quiet contempt of scientific pursuits, which not even the captain's influence was able to subdue, of the illusory promises of help and advancement held out by the Admiralty to young investigators, makes a striking foil to the spirit in which the Government of thirty years later undertook a greater scientific expedition. Perhaps some vivid recollections of this voyage did something to better the conditions under which the later investigators worked.
Thus, page 100:]
In the year 1846, Captain Owen Stanley, a young and zealous officer, of good report for his capabilities as a scientific surveyor, was entrusted with the command of the "Rattlesnake," a vessel of six-and-twenty guns, strong and seaworthy, but one of that class unenviably distinguished in the war-time as a "donkey-frigate." To the laity it would seem that a ship journeying to unknown regions, when the lives of a couple of hundred men may, at any moment, depend upon her handiness in going about, so as to avoid any suddenly discovered danger, should possess the best possible sailing powers. The Admiralty, however, makes its selection upon other principles, and exploring vessels will be invariably found to be the slowest, clumsiest, and in every respect the most inconvenient ships which wear the pennant. In accordance with the rule, such was the "Rattlesnake"; and to carry out the spirit of the authorities more completely, she was turned out of Portsmouth dockyard in such a disgraceful state of unfitness, that her lower deck was continually under water during the voyage.
[Again, page 100:]
It is necessary to be provided with books of reference, which are ruinously expensive to a private individual, though a mere dewdrop in the general cost of the fitting out of a ship, especially as they might be kept in store, and returned at the end of a commission, like other stores. A hundred pounds sterling would have well supplied the "Rattlesnake"; but she sailed without a volume, an application made by her captain not having been attended to.
[Page 103:]
Of all those who were actively engaged upon the survey, the young commander alone was destined by inevitable fate to be robbed of his just reward. Care and anxiety, from the mobility of his temperament, sat not so lightly upon him as they might have done, and this, joined to the physical debility produced by the enervating climate of New Guinea, fairly wore him out, making him prematurely old before much more than half of the allotted span was completed. But he died in harness, the end attained, the work that lay before him honourably done. Which of us may dare to ask for more? He has raised an enduring monument in his works, and his epitaph shall be the grateful thanks of many a mariner threading his way among the mazes of the Coral Sea.
[Page 104:]
The world enclosed within the timbers of a man-of-war is a most remarkable community, hardly to be rendered vividly intelligible to the mere landsman in these days of constitutional government and freedom of the press.
[Then follows a vigorous sketch of sea life from Chamisso, suggesting that the type of one's relation to the captain is to be found in Jean Paul's "Biography of the Twins," who were united back to back. This sketch Huxley enforces by a passage from the imaginary journal aforesaid,] "indited apparently when the chains were yet new and somewhat galled the writer," [to judge from which] "little alteration would seem to have taken place in nautical life" [since Chamisso's voyage, thirty years before.]
You tell me [he writes], that you sigh for my life of freedom and adventure; and that, compared with mine, the conventional monotony of your own stinks in your nostrils. My dear fellow, be patient, and listen to what I have to say; you will then, perhaps, be a little more content with your lot in life, and a little less desirous of mine. Of all extant lives, that on board a ship-of-war is the most artificial—whether necessarily so or not is a question I will not undertake to decide; but the fact is indubitable.
How utterly disgusted you get with one another! Little peculiarities which would give a certain charm and variety to social intercourse under any other circumstances, become sources of absolute pain, and almost uncontrollable irritation, when you are shut up with them day and night. One good friend and messmate of mine has a peculiar laugh, whose iteration on our last cruise nearly drove me insane.
There is no being alone in a ship. Sailors are essentially gregarious animals, and don't at all understand the necessity under which many people labour—I among the rest—of having a little solitary converse with oneself occasionally.
Then, to a landsman fresh from ordinary society and its peculiarly undemonstrative ways, there is something very wonderful about naval discipline. I do not mean to say that the subordination kept up is more than is necessary, nor perhaps is it in reality greater than is to be found in a college, or a regiment, or a large mercantile house; but it is made so VERY obvious. You not only feel the bit, but you see it; and your bridle is hung with bells to tell you of its presence.
Your captain is a very different person, in relation to his officers, from the colonel of a regiment; he is a demi-god, a Dalai lama, living in solitary state; sublime, unapproachable; and the radiation of his dignity stretches through all the other members of the nautical hierarchy; hence all sorts of petty intrigues, disputes, grumblings, and jealousies, which, to the irreverent eye of an "idler," give to the whole little society the aspect of nothing so much as the court of Prinz Irenaeus in Kater Murr's inestimable autobiography.
[Page 107 sq.:
After describing the illusory promises of the Admiralty and their grudging spirit towards the scientific members of the expedition, he continues:—]
These are the FACILITIES AND ENCOURAGEMENT to science afforded by the Admiralty; and it cannot be wondered at if the same spirit runs through its subordinate officers.
Not that there is any active opposition—quite the reverse. But it is a curious fact, that if you want a boat for dredging, ten chances to one they are always actually or potentially otherwise disposed of; if you leave your towing-net trailing astern in search of new creatures, in some promising patch of discoloured water, it is, in all probability, found to have a wonderful effect in stopping the ship's way, and is hauled in as soon as your back is turned; or a careful dissection waiting to be drawn may find its way overboard as a "mess."
The singular disrespect with which the majority of naval officers regard everything that lies beyond the sphere of routine, tends to produce a tone of feeling very unfavourable to scientific exertions. How can it be otherwise, in fact, with men who, from the age of thirteen, meet with no influence but that which teaches them that the "Queen's regulations and instructions" are the law and the prophets, and something more?
It may be said, without fear of contradiction, that in time of peace the only vessels which are engaged in services involving any real hardship or danger are those employed upon the various surveys; and yet the men of easy routine—harbour heroes—the officers of REGULAR men-of-war, as they delight to be called, pretend to think surveying a kind of shirking—in sea-phrase, "sloping." It is to be regretted that the officers of the surveying vessels themselves are too often imbued with the same spirit; and though, for shame's sake, they can but stand up for hydrography, they are too apt to think an alliance with other branches of science as beneath the dignity of their divinity—the "Service."
[Page 112:]
Any adventures ashore were mere oases, separated by whole deserts of the most wearisome ennui. For weeks, perhaps, those who were not fortunate enough to be living hard and getting fatigued every day in the boats were yawning away their existence in an atmosphere only comparable to that of an orchid-house, a life in view of which that of Mariana in the moated grange has its attractions.
For instance, consider this extract from the journal of one of the officers, date August 1849:—
"Rain! rain! encore et toujours—I wonder if it is possible for the mind of man to conceive anything more degradingly offensive than the condition of us 150 men, shut up in this wooden box, and being watered with hot water, as we are now. It is no exaggeration to say HOT, for the temperature is that at which people at home commonly take a hot bath. It rains so hard that we have caught seven tons of water in one day, and it is therefore impossible to go on deck, though, if one did, one's condition would not be much improved. A HOT Scotch mist covers the sea and hides the land, so that no surveying can be done; moving about in the slightest degree causes a flood of perspiration to pour out; all energy is completely gone, and if I could help it I would not think even; it's too hot. The rain awnings are spread, and we can have no wind sails up; if we could, there is not a breath of wind to fill them; and consequently the lower and main decks are utterly unventilated: a sort of solution of man in steam fills them from end to end, and surrounds the lights with a lurid halo. It's too hot to sleep, and my sole amusement consists in watching the cockroaches, which are in a state of intense excitement and happiness. They manifest these feelings in a very remarkable manner—a sudden unanimous impulse seems to seize the obscene thousands which usually lurk hidden in the corners of my cabin. Out they rush, helter-skelter, and run over me, my table, and my desk; others, more vigorous, fly, quite regardless of consequences, until they hit against something, upon which, half spreading their wings, they make their heads a pivot and spin round in a circle, in a manner which indicates a temporary aberration of the cockroach mind. It is these outbreaks alone which rouse us from our lassitude. Knocks are heard resounding on all sides, and each inhabitant of a cabin, armed with a slipper, is seen taking ample revenge upon the disturbers of his rest and the destroyers of his body and clothes."
Here, on the other hand, is an oasis, a bartering scene at Bruny Island, in the Louisiade:—
"We landed at the same place as before, and this time the natives ran down prancing and gesticulating. Many of them had garlands of green leaves round their heads, knees, and ankles; some wore long streamers depending from their arms and ears and floating in the wind as they galloped along, shaking their spears and prancing just as boys do when playing at horses. They soon surrounded us, shouting 'Kelumai! Kelumai!' (their word for iron), and offering us all sorts of things in exchange. One very fine athletic man, "Kaioo-why-who-at' by name, was perfectly mad to get an axe, and very soon comprehended the arrangements that were made. Mr. Brady drew ten lines on the sand and laid an axe down by them, giving K— (I really can't write that long name all over again) to understand by signs that when there was a 'bahar' (yam) on every mark he should have the axe. He comprehended directly, and bolted off as fast as he could run, soon returning with his hands full of yams, which he deposited one by one on the appropriate lines; then fearful lest some of the others should do him out of the axe, he caught hold of Brady by the arm, and would not let him go until yams enough had been brought by the others to make up the number, and the axe was handed over to him.
"Then was there a yell of delight! He jumped up with the axe, flourished it, passed it to his companions, tumbled down and rolled over, kicking up his heels in the air, and finally, catching hold of me, we had a grand waltz, with various poses plasticques, for about a quarter of a mile. I daresay he was unsophisticated enough to imagine that I was filled with sympathetic joy, but I grieve to say that I was taking care all the while to direct his steps towards the village, which, as we had as yet examined none of their houses, I was most desirous of entering under my friend's sanction. I think he suspected something, for he looked at me rather dubiously when I directed our steps towards the entrance in the bush which led to the houses, and wanted me to go back; but I was urgent, so he gave way, and we both entered the open space, where we were joined by two or three others, and sat down under a cocoanut tree.
"I persuaded him to sit for his portrait (taking care first that my back was against the tree and my pistols handy), and we ate green cocoanuts together, at last attaining to so great a pitch of intimacy that he made me change names with him, calling himself 'Tamoo' (my Cape York name), and giving me to understand that I was to take his own lengthy appellation. When I did so, and talked to him as 'Tamoo,' nothing could exceed the delight of all around; they patted me as you would a child, and evidently said to one another, 'This really seems to be a very intelligent white fellow.'
"Like the Cape York natives, they were immensely curious to look at one's legs, asking permission, very gently but very pressingly, to pull up the trouser, spanning the calf with their hands, drawing in their breath and making big eyes all the while. Once, when the front of my shirt blew open, and they saw the white skin of my chest, they set up an universal shout. I imagine that as they paint THEIR faces black, they fancied that we ingeniously coloured ours white, and were astonished to see that we were really of that (to them) disgusting tint all over."
[On May 2, 1850, the "Rattlesnake" sailed for the last time out of Sydney harbour, bound for England by way of the Horn. In spite of his cheerful anticipations, Huxley was not to see his future wife again for five years more, when he was at length in a position to bid her come and join him. During the three years of their engagement in Australia, they had at least been able to see each other at intervals, and to be together for months at a time. In the long periods of absence, also, they had invented a device to cheat the sense of separation. Each kept a particular journal, to be exchanged when they met again, and only to be read, day by day, during the next voyage. But now it was very different, their only means of communication being the slow agency of the post, beset with endless possibilities of misunderstanding when it brought belated answers to questions already months old and out of date in the changed aspect of circumstances. These perils, however, they weathered, and it proves how deep in the moral nature of each the bond between them was rooted, that in the end they passed safely through the still greater danger of imperceptibly growing estranged from one another under the influences of such utterly different surroundings.
A kindly storm which forced the old ship to put into the Bay of Islands to repair a number of small leaks that rendered the lower deck uninhabitable, made it possible for Huxley to send back a letter that should reach Australia in one month instead of ten after his departure.
He utilized a week's stay here characteristically enough in an expedition to Waimate, the chief missionary station and the school of the native institutions (a sort of Normal School for native teachers), in order to judge of his own inspection what missionary life was like.]
I have been greatly surprised in these good people [he writes]. I had expected a good deal of "straight-hairedness" (if you understand the phrase) and methodistical puritanism, but I find it quite otherwise. Both Mr. and Mrs. Burrows seem very quiet and unpretending—straightforward folks desirous of doing their best for the people among whom they are placed.
[One touch must not be allowed to pass unnoticed in his appreciation of the missionaries' unstudied welcome to the belated travellers, whose proper host was unable to take them in:—"tea unlimited and a blazing fire, TOGETHER WITH A VERY NICE CAT."
By July 12, midwinter of course in the southern hemisphere, they had rounded the Horn, and Huxley writes from that most desolate of British possessions, the Falkland Islands:—]
I have great hopes of being able to send a letter to you, via California, even from this remote corner of the world. It is the Ultima Thule and no mistake. Fancy two good-sized islands with undulated surface and sometimes elevated hills, but without tree or bush as tall as a man. When we arrived the 8th inst. the barren uniformity was rendered still more obvious by the deep coating of snow which enveloped everything. How can I describe to you "Stanley," the sole town, metropolis, and seat of government? It consists of a lot of black, low, weatherboard houses scattered along the hillsides which rise round the harbour. One barnlike place is Government House, another the pensioners' barracks, rendered imposing by four field-pieces in front; others smaller are the residences of the colonel, surgeon, etc. In one particularly black and unpromising-looking house lives a Mrs. Sulivan, the wife of Captain Sulivan, who surveyed these islands, and has settled out here. (Captain Sulivan, who sailed with Darwin in the "Beagle," and served with great distinction in command of the southern division of the fleet in the battle of Obligado (Plate River), had surveyed the Falkland Islands many years before his temporary settlement there. During the Crimean War he was surveying officer to the Baltic fleet, and afterwards naval adviser to the Board of Trade. He was afterwards Admiral and K.C.B.) I asked myself if I could have had the heart to bring you to such a desolate place, and myself said "No." However, I believe she is very happy with her children. Sulivan is a fine energetic man, so I suppose if she loves him, well and good, and fancies (is she not a silly woman?) that she has her reward. Mrs. Stanley has gone to stay with them while the ship remains here, and I think I shall go and look them up under pretence of making a call. They say that the present winter is far more savage than the generality of Falkland Island winters, and it had need be, for I never felt anything so bitterly cold in my life. The thermometer has been down below 22, and shallow parts of the harbour even have frozen. Nothing to be done ashore. My rifle lies idle in its case; no chance of a shot at a bull, and one has to go away 20 miles to get hold even of the upland geese and rabbits. The only thing to be done is to eat, eat, eat, and the cold assists one wonderfully in that operation. You consume a pound or so of beefsteaks at breakfast and then walk the deck for an appetite at dinner, when you take another pound or two of beef or a goose, or some such trifle. By four o'clock it is dark night, and as it is too cold to read the only thing to be done is to vanish under blankets as soon as possible and take twelve or fourteen hours' sleep.
Mrs. Stanley's Bougirigards [The Australian love-bird; a small parrakeet.], which I have taken under my care during the cold weather, admire this sort of thing exceedingly and thrive under it, so I suppose I ought to.
The journey from New Zealand here has been upon the whole favourable; no gales—quite the reverse—but light variable winds and calms. The latter part of our voyage has, however, been very cold, snow falling in abundance, and the ice forming great stalactites about our bows. We have seen no icebergs nor anything remarkable. From all I can learn it is most probable that we shall leave in about a week and shall go direct to England without stopping at any other port. I wish it may be so. I want to get home and look about me.
We have had news up to the end of March. There is nothing of any importance going on. By the Navy list for April I see that I shall be as nearly as possible in the middle of those of my own rank, i.e. I shall have about 150 above and as many below me. This is about what I ought to expect in the ordinary run of promotion in eight years, and I have served four and a half of that time. I don't expect much in the way of promotion, especially in these economic times; but I do not fear that I shall be able to keep me in England for at least a year after our arrival, in order to publish my papers. The Admiralty have quite recently published a distinct declaration that they will consider scientific attainments as a claim to their notice, and I expect to be the first to remind them of their promise, and I will take care to have the reminder so backed that they must and shall take note of it. Even if they will not promote me at once, it would answer our purpose to have an appointment to some ship on the home station for a short time.
[The last of the Falklands was seen on July 25; the line was crossed in thirty-six days; another month, and water running short, it was found necessary to put in at the Azores for a week. Leaving Fayal on October 5, the "Rattlesnake" reached Plymouth on the 23rd, but next day proceeded to Chatham, which, thanks to baffling winds, was not reached till November 9, when the ship was paid off.
CHAPTER 1.5.
1850-1851.
[In the Huxley Lecture for 1898 ("Times," October 4) Professor Virchow takes occasion to speak of the effect of Huxley's service in the "Rattlesnake" upon his intellectual development:—
When Huxley himself left Charing Cross Hospital in 1846, he had enjoyed a rich measure of instruction in anatomy and physiology. Thus trained, he took the post of naval surgeon, and by the time that he returned, four years later, he had become a perfect zoologist and a keen-sighted ethnologist. How this was possible any one will readily understand who knows from his own experience how great the value of personal observation is for the development of independent and unprejudiced thought. For a young man who, besides collecting a rich treasure of positive knowledge, has practised dissection and the exercise of a critical judgment, a long sea-voyage and a peaceful sojourn among entirely new surroundings afford an invaluable opportunity for original work and deep reflection. Freed from the formalism of the schools, thrown upon the use of his own intellect, compelled to test each single object as the prevailing system and becomes, first a sceptic, and then an investigator. This change, which did not fail to affect Huxley, and through which arose that Huxley whom we commemorate to-day, is no unknown occurrence to one who is acquainted with the history, not only of knowledge, but also of scholars.
But he was not destined to find his subsequent path easy. Once in England, indeed, he did not lose any time. No sooner had the "Rattlesnake" touched at Plymouth than Commander Yule, who had succeeded Captain Stanley in the command of the ship, wrote to the head of the Naval Medical Department stating the circumstances under which Huxley's zoological investigations had been undertaken, and asking the sanction of the Admiralty for their publication. The hydrographer, in sending the formal permission, says:—
But I have to add that their Lordships will not allow any charge to be made upon the public funds towards the expense. You will, however, further assure Mr. Huxley that any assistance that can be supplied from this office shall be most cheerfully given to him, and that I heartily hope, from the capacity and taste for scientific investigation for which you give him credit, that he will produce a work alike creditable to himself, to his late Captain, by whom he was selected for it, and to Her Majesty's service.
Personally, the hydrographer took a great interest in science; but as for the department, Huxley somewhat bitterly interpreted the official meaning of this well-sounding flourish to be made: "Publish if you can, and give us credit for granting every facility except the one means of publishing."
Happily there was another way of publishing, if the Admiralty would grant him time to arrange his papers and superintend their publication. The Royal Society had at their disposal an annual grant of money for the publication of scientific works. If the Government would not contribute directly to publish the researches made under their auspices, the favourable reception which his preliminary papers had met with led Huxley to hope that his greater work would be undertaken by the Royal Society. If the leading men of science attested the value of his work, the Admiralty might be induced to let him stay in England with the nominal appointment as assistant surgeon to H.M.S. "Fisguard" at Woolwich, for "particular service," but with leave of absence from the ship so that he could live and pursue his avocations in London. There was a precedent for this course in the case of Dr. Hooker, when he had to work out the scientific results of the voyage of the "Erebus" and "Terror."
In this design he was fortified by his old Haslar friend, Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Watt Reid, who wrote: "They cannot, and, I am sure, will not wish to stand in your way at Whitehall." Meanwhile, the first person, naturally, he had thought of consulting was his old chief, Sir John Richardson, who had great weight at the Admiralty, and to him he wrote the following letter before leaving Plymouth.]
To Sir John Richardson.
October 31, 1850.
I regret very much that in consequence of our being ordered to be paid off at Chatham, instead of Portsmouth, as we always hoped and expected, I shall be unable to submit to your inspection the zoological notes and drawings which I have made during our cruise. They are somewhat numerous (over 180 sheets of drawings), and I hope not altogether valueless, since they have been made with as great care and attention as I am master of—and with a microscope, such as has rarely, if ever, made a voyage round the world before. A further reason for indulging in this hope consists in the fact that they relate for the most part to animals hitherto very little known, whether from their rarity or from their perishable nature, and that they bear upon many curious physiological points.
I may thus classify and enumerate the observations I have made:—
1. Upon the organs of hearing and circulation in some of the transparent Crustacea, and upon the structure of certain of the lower forms of Crustacea.
2. Upon some very remarkable new forms of Annelids, and especially upon the much contested genus Sagitta, which I have evidence to show is neither a Mollusc nor an Epizoon, but an Annelid.