Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 2

by Thomas Henry Huxley

We started on July 2nd, I loaded with injunctions from his physician as to what his patient was to eat, drink, and avoid, how much he was to sleep and rest, how little to talk and walk, etc., that would have made the expedition a perpetual burthen to me had I not believed that I knew enough of my friend's disposition and ailments to be convinced that not only health but happiness would be our companions throughout. Sure enough, for the first few days, including a short stay in Paris, his spirits were low indeed, but this gave me the opportunity of appreciating his remarkable command over himself and his ever-present consideration for his companion. Not a word or gesture of irritation ever escaped him; he exerted himself to obey the instructions laid down; nay, more, he was instant in his endeavour to save me trouble at hotels, railway stations, and ticket offices. Still, some mental recreation was required to expedite recovery, and he found it first by picking up at a bookstall, a "History of the Miracles of Lourdes," which were then exciting the religious fervour of France, and the interest of her scientific public. He entered with enthusiasm into the subject, getting together all the treatises upon it, favourable or the reverse, that were accessible, and I need hardly add, soon arrived at the conclusion, that the so-called miracles were in part illusions and for the rest delusions. As it may interest some of your readers to know what his opinion was in this early stage of the manifestations, I will give it as he gave it to me. It was a case of two peasant children sent in the hottest month of the year into a hot valley to collect sticks for firewood washed up by a stream, when one of them after stooping down opposite a heat-reverberating rock, was, in rising, attacked with a transient vertigo, under which she saw a figure in white against the rock. This bare fact being reported to the cure of the village, all the rest followed.

Soon after our arrival at Clermont Ferrand, your father had so far recovered his wonted elasticity of spirits that he took a keen interest in everything around, the museums, the cathedral, where he enjoyed the conclusion of the service by a military band which gave selections from the Figlia del Regimento, but above all he appreciated the walks and drives to the geological features of the environs. He reluctantly refrained from ascending the Puy de Dome, but managed the Pic Parion, Gergovia, Royat, and other points of interest without fatigue…

After Clermont they visited the other four great volcanic areas explored by Scrope, Mont Dore, the Cantal, Le Puy, and the valley of the Ardeche. Under the care of his friend, and relieved from the strain of work, my father's health rapidly improved. He felt no bad effects from a night at Mont Dore, when, owing to the crowd of invalids in the little town, no better accommodation could be found than a couple of planks in a cupboard. Next day they took up their quarters in an unpretentious cabaret at La Tour d'Auvergne, one of the villages on the slopes of the mountain, a few miles away.

Here (writes Sir J. Hooker), and for some time afterwards, on our further travels, we had many interesting and amusing experiences of rural life in the wilder parts of central France, its poverty, penury, and too often its inconceivable impositions and overcharges to foreigners, quite consistently with good feeling, politeness, and readiness to assist in many ways.

By the 10th of July, nine days after setting out, I felt satisfied (he continues) that your father was equal to an excursion upon which he had set his heart, to the top of the Pic de Sancy, 4000 feet above La Tour and 7 miles distant.

It was on this occasion that the friends made what they thought a new discovery, namely evidence of glacial action in central France. Besides striated stones in the fields or built into the walls, they noticed the glaciated appearance of one of the valleys descending from the peak, and especially some isolated gigantic masses of rock on an open part of the valley, several miles away, as to which they debated whether they were low buildings or transported blocks. Sir Joseph visited them next day, and found they were the latter, brought down from the upper part of the peak. (He published an account of these blocks in "Nature" 8 31, 166, but subsequently found that glaciation had been observed by von Lassaul in 1872 and by Sir William Guise in 1870.)

Lepuy offered a special attraction apart from scenery and geology. In the museum was the skeleton of a prehistoric man that had been found in the breccia of the neighbourhood, associated with the remains of the rhinoceros, elephant, and other extinct mammals. My father's sketch-book contains drawings of these bones and of the ravine where they were discovered, although in spite of directions from M. Aymard, the curator, he could not find the exact spot. Under the sketch is a description of the remains, in which he notes,] "The bones do not look fresher than some of those of Elephas and Rhinoceros in the same or adjacent cases."

[As for the final stage of the excursion:—

After leaving the Ardeche (continues Sir J. Hooker), with no Scrope to lead or follow, our scientific ardours collapsed. We had vague views as to future travel. Whatever one proposed was unhesitatingly acceded to by the other. A more happy-go-lucky pair of idlers never joined company.

As will be seen from the following letters, they made their way to the Black Forest, where they stayed till Sir Joseph's duties called him back to England, and my mother came out to join my father for the rest of his holiday. (You ask me (Sir Joseph adds) whether your father smoked on the occasion of this tour. Yes, he did, cigars in moderation. But the history of his addiction to tobacco that grew upon him later in life, dates from an earlier excursion that we took together, and I was the initiator of the practice. It happened in this wise; he had been suffering from what was supposed to be gastric irritation, and, being otherwise "run down," we agreed to go, in company with Sir John Lubbock, on a tour to visit the great monoliths of Brittany. This was in 1867. On arriving at Dinan he suffered so much, that I recommended his trying a few cigarettes which I had with me. They acted as a charm, and this led to cigars, and finally, about 1875 I think, to the pipe. That he subsequently carried the use of tobacco to excess is, I think, unquestionable. I repeatedly remonstrated with him, at last I think (by backing his medical adviser) with effect.