702 FINAL JOURNEYS AND WORK. [1880, 



Tuesday for the Loire district and thence to Spain, 

 but expect to return here after our round, and stay 

 possibly a month. Play first, work afterwards, is our 

 present motto. If the Academy, or any of the breth- 

 ren, take Garber's little Porto Rico collection, you or 

 they will be glad to know that Professor Oliver and 

 I named them up while I was at Kew, and that the 

 list has been forwarded to D. C. Eaton. News I have 

 little to tell you. Yet, though we left home only a 

 month ago, it seems a half year. We had a botanical 

 concours at Kew ; for De Candolle and wife came 

 over, as he says, to see Mrs. Gray and me, and the Hook- 

 ers gave two dinner parties on the occasion ; present 

 four botanists, whose united ages sum up high, for 

 Bentham had his eightieth birthday just before, De 

 Candolle is about seventy-five, I on the verge of 

 seventy, and Hooker, the baby of the set, in his sixty- 

 fourth year ; some younger botanists were with us, 

 Oliver, Baker, Masters, young Balfour, etc. 



TO J. D. HOOKER. 



MALAGA, August 30, 1880. 



. . . As to pictures, you know I am no picture 

 sharp ; but Madrid and Seville (which must be taken 

 together) are a revelation of Murillo and Velasquez. 

 . . . That kind of thing is nearly over with us on 

 leaving attractive and sunny Seville. We cut off 

 Jerez and Cordova, and came in here yesterday 

 through olive groves enough to saponify and saladu- 

 late creation, and the passage through the mountains 

 from Bobadilla to Malaga, wonderfully grand, ending 

 in orange groves filling lovely dells and valleys. 



