Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 1

by Thomas Henry Huxley

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.