When we arrived at Ipswich there was a good deal of trouble about getting lodgings. My companions located themselves about a mile out of the town, but that was too far for my "indolent habits"; I sought and at last found a room in the town a little bigger than my cabin on board ship for which I had the satisfaction of paying 30 shillings a week.
You know what the British Association is. It is a meeting of the savans of England and the Continent, under the presidency of some big-wig or other,—this year of the Astronomer-Royal,—for the purpose of exchanging information. To this end they arrange themselves into different sections, each with its own president and committee, and indicated by letters. For instance, Section A is for Mathematics and Physics; Section B for Chemistry, etc.; my own section, that of Natural History, was D, under the presidency of Professor Henslow of Cambridge. I was on the committee, and therefore saw the working of the whole affair.
On the first day there was a dearth of matter in our section. People had not arrived with their papers. So by way of finding out whether I could speak in public or not, I got up and talked to them for about twenty minutes. I was considerably surprised to find that when once I had made the plunge, my tongue went glibly enough.
On the following day I read a long paper, which I had prepared and illustrated with a lot of big diagrams, to an audience of about twenty people! The rest were all away after Prince Albert, who had been unfortunately induced to visit the meeting, and fairly turned the heads of the good people of Ipswich. On Saturday a very pleasant excursion on scientific pretences, but in fact a most jolly and unscientific picnic, took place. Several hundred people went down the Orwell in a steamer. The majority returned, but I and two others, considering Sunday in Ipswich an impossibility, stopped at a little seaside village, Felixstowe, and idled away our time there very pleasantly. Babington the botanist and myself walked into Ipswich on Sunday night. It is about eleven miles, and we did it comfortably in two hours and three quarters, which was not bad walking.
On Monday at Section D again. Forbes brought forward the subject of my application to Government in committee, and it was unanimously agreed to forward a resolution on the subject to the Committee of Recommendations. I made a speechification of some length in the Section about a new animal.
On Thursday morning I attended a meeting of the Ray Society, and to my infinite astonishment, the secretary, Dr. Lankester, gave me the second motion to make. The Prince of Casino moved the first, so I was in good company. The great absurdity of it was that not being a member of the Society I had properly no right to speak at all. However, it was only a vote of thanks, and I got up and did the "neat and appropriate" in style.
After this a party of us went out dredging in the Orwell in a small boat. We were away all day, and it rained hard coming back, so that I got wet through, and had to pull five miles to keep off my enemy, the rheumatics.
Then came the President's dinner, to which I did not go, as I preferred making myself comfortable with a few friends elsewhere. And after that, the final evening meeting, when all the final determinations are announced.
Among them I had the satisfaction to hear that it was resolved—that the President and Council of the British Association should co-operate with the Royal Society in representing the value and importance, etc., of Mr. T.H. Huxley's zoological researches to Her Majesty's Government for the purpose of obtaining a grant towards their publication. Subsequently I was introduced to Colonel Sabine, the President of the Association in 1852, and a man of very high standing and considerable influence. He had previously been civil enough to sign my certificate at the Royal Society, unsolicited, and therefore knew me by reputation—I only mean that as a very small word. He was very civil and promised me every assistance in his power.
It is a curious thing that of the four applications to Government to be made by the Association, two were for Naval Assistant-Surgeons, namely one for Dr. Hooker, who had just returned from the Himalaya Mountains, and one for me. How I envied Hooker; he has long been engaged to a daughter of Professor Henslow's, and at this very meeting he sat by her side. He is going to be married in a day or two. His father is director of the Kew Gardens, and there is little doubt of his succeeding him.