292 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. xn. 



come to this country, attracted by his glowing accounts 

 in his private letters from America. The addition of 

 Pourtales, who had independent means, was important, 

 for Agassiz did not have to provide for his support, and 

 he was greatly assisted by him, when he settled at East 

 Boston. 



After repeating his Lowell lectures at Albany, before 

 a very sympathetic audience, Agassiz and Pourtales 

 embarked at New York for Charleston, South Carolina. 

 The reception they received was particularly gratifying. 

 Everything possessed a charm unknown to Agassiz 

 until then, and it was the first time that he came in 

 contact with a sub-tropical fauna and flora. Besides, 

 the broad and generous hospitality of the planters 

 attracted him much, and Agassiz and Pourtales were 

 both glad to meet gentlemen, coming from their common 

 stock of French and Swiss Protestants, like de Saussure, 

 Ravenel, and others, or Dr. Fabre, an old Swabe 

 student of the University of Tubingen. But the man 

 who particularly pleased them was Dr. Holbrook, a her- 

 petologist of talent, one of the rare zoologists of the New 

 World, and at the same time a most amiable and ser- 

 viceable man. 



Agassiz delivered a course of lectures, with the same 

 success as before the Lowell Institute, which made him 

 at once a great favourite in Southern society. Estab- 

 lished with Pourtales on one of the islands near Charles- 

 ton, he was in perfect ecstasy over his daily discoveries 

 of new fishes, new turtles, new molluscs. The rich 

 entomological fauna was also a constant surprise. But 

 what made the greatest impression on him as a natu- 



