TO A. DE CANDOLLE.
Herbarium, Kew, April 23, 1887.
My dear De Candolle,—You will be a little surprised at the sudden transfer of Mrs. Gray and myself to England; but I wanted a vacation and one more bit of pleasant travel with Mrs. Gray while we are both alive and capable of enjoying it. Whether I shall look in upon you at Geneva is doubtful, but it may be, even for a moment. We never expect to have repeated the pleasant week at Geneva of the spring of 1881.
We expect to go to Paris early in May, but subsequent movements are uncertain.
Always, dear De Candolle, affectionately yours,
Asa Gray.
TO ——.
May 15, 1887.
I think the journey from Bâle, in Switzerland, to Salzburg was wonderfully fine and a great success, and that May is a good time to do it, while there is plenty of snow in the mountains. Lake Wallenstadt showed to great advantage. And I had no idea that the pass of the Arlberg, from Feldkirk to Innspruck, was so high or so very fine. I believe it is the highest railway pass across the Alps. I was quite unprepared (which was all the better) for the exquisite and wild, and in parts grand, scenery of the next day’s journey through the heart of Lower Tyrol and the Salzburg Salzkammergut, by a slower train, a roundabout road making more than twice the direct distance from Innspruck to Salzburg, through the Zillerthal and over a fairly high pass on to the upper part of the Salzach, and down it through some wild cañons into the plain, from nine A.M. till five, of choicest scenery. The great castle, so picturesquely placed in the Lichtenstein (plain), is Schloss-Werden. Rainy day at Salzburg, or should have had noble views. If the weather had been good, I think we would have driven from Salzburg to Ischl, and then come by the Traunsee to Linz. But after all, from my remembrance, it would hardly have come up to what we had already seen. And though it was a rainy day for the Danube, we did see everything pretty well, and most comfortably, in the ladies’ cabin of the steamer, with windows all round the three sides, and most of the time the whole to ourselves, or with only one quiet lady, who evidently cared nothing for the views. J. says I was bobbing all the time from one side to the other. I was looking out for the views which I had when going up the Danube forty-eight years ago. J. thinks it not equal to the Rhine, but there is rather more of it, or scattered over more space.
TO SIR J. D. HOOKER.