THE LATE ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, ESQ. 285 
coast, at which I can make any stay I may deem desir- 
able. Finally, I hope to wind all up by the close of August, 
to be ready for embarkation back to Sydney." 
Whether Mr. Cunningham was enabled to accomplish all 
he anticipated, is uncertain, (and considering his state of 
health very improbable); for his other letters from New 
Zealand only mention his movements generally. He left the 
islands the 30th of September, and landed in Sydney on the 
13th of October, in a most deplorable state of health, of 
which he writes as follows :— 
“TI returned from the Bay of Islands on the 13th of 
October, having had a fair and expeditious passage across of 
fourteen days, in a small schooner of ninety tons. I landed 
in very ill health, arising from the excessive chill I ex- 
perienced in New Zealand, and the consequent paralyzed 
state of my poor limbs and general organic derangement, in 
consequence of the meagre food and poverty of my diet 
generally, during the period of my sojourn among my mis- 
sionary friends since the 25th of May last. I am housed 
here (Elizabeth-street) in a friend's cottage, and hope, by 
generous food and cheerful society, to get myself again on 
my legs, to do a little more before I embark for Old England. 
With this view I am lying by, and in a state of perfect quiet. 
I walk half a mile at noon, amidst a heated state of atmo- 
sphere (90? Fahr.) and under a blazing sun; but the New 
Zealand chill still hanging about me, SS rs my present 
state of existence far from comfortable. The truth is (and 
it is a folly to disguise it), I am past further great exer- 
tions. I can neither undertake any more expeditions inte- 
riorly, or walk about in search of any more plants; but a 
man cannot ever during life be on his legs. I have now been 
twenty-four years leading a vagrant kind of life; andif I have 
done the least good in that long period, so much the better. 
I can, however, do no more, save joining Capt. Wickham in 
the Beagle, next March, for a short while: but more pre- 
sently on this head. 
“ I have brought back with me a fiue collection of crypto- 
