. 40.] TO A. DE CANDOLLE. 377 



the family of Mr. and Mrs. Todhunter, Dr. Harvey's 

 sister. Going on board the steamer at ten in the 

 evening, he met with the severe accident of which he 

 gives an account in his letters. Dr. Harvey came 

 from Dublin to help in nursing him. His vigor and 

 elasticity helped him to a speedy recovery, but it in- 

 creased a general tendency to stoop, and he was never 

 so erect afterwards. 



He was able to get to Kew the last of December, 

 and spent the winter in hard work in Sir William 

 Hooker's herbarium, which was then in his house at 

 West Park. 



TO A. DE CANDOLLE. 

 CUMBERLAND PLACE, KEW, December 28, 1850. 



Your kind favor of December 6th, forwarded to 

 me by Bentham, to Dublin, would have been sooner 

 acknowledged, but that it found me an invalid. On 

 our way from Hereford to Dublin I had just gone on 

 board a steamer at Holyhead, early in the evening ; 

 had left Mrs. Gray in the ladies' cabin, when, coming 

 on deck again, I stepped over an open hatchway which 

 had been left for the moment very carelessly un- 

 guarded and unlighted. I fell full eighteen feet, they 

 say, to the bottom of the hold, striking partly on my 

 right hand and the side of my right leg, bruising and 

 straining both, but principally on my right side against 

 a timber projecting from the floor, fracturing two of 

 my ribs. It is truly wonderful that I was not more 

 seriously and permanently injured. I was taken on 

 shore at once and had good medical attendance. I re- 

 covered so rapidly that in a week I was comfortably 

 taken across to Dublin, where I was kindly cared for 

 by good friends ; in two weeks more I left for London, 



