387 
Failing health prevented his sending further specimens to 
Kew, and it would appear as if he had now become unable to 
overtake the task of incorporating desiderata in his general collec- 
tion, for in a note written on 16th January, 1899, he speaks of 
"parcels of plants in . . man; duplicates but 
some that an- not in m\ cabinets : and 1 should like to send th-m 
over to the Kew Herbarium, and not give my .-\. . 
trouble of despatching them." Six months Later he 
that he had been unable to undertake the despatch of the-e 
parcels mainly owing to the after effects of an accident, I Call in 
crossing a room, which had happened in 1892. 
The parcels in question were never sent by Chur-hill. and the nu,e 
referred to is the last item in the lorn,' and interesting series of letters 
written by him to Kew. They now, however, have reached the 
destination he had intended for them, having been received with rest 
of the collection bequeathed under his will to the Kew Herbarium. 
The collection includes 50 cabinets filled with parcels of plants. 
Of these cabinets 28 are devoted to the general European collec- 
tion mentioned above, the remainder contain portions oi special 
collections from which specimens required to strengthen the 
general collection appear in most cases to have been already 
removed. There are, however, in addition, as man] 
plants, for which there is no accommodation in the cabinets, as 
the cabinets actually hold. These parcels contain, in every 
case, portions of special collections; from some <>l them, as ins 
correspondence shows, the specimens required to BtM 
general collection have not yet been abstracted. Tim wheie 
herbarium includes about 10,000 species, varieties and hybrids. 
An intimate friend of long standing writes :— " Mr Churchill 
was a delightful con panmn and a very interesting talker on .id 
whether one met him in a drawing-room or— as was 
more commonly the case— on the Downs. He was completely 
human and all human knowledge interested him." 
The journeys described in "The Dolona 
undertaken for mountain-travel rather than for A pine climbmg 
and, as we have seen, the authors during the tourt 
and 1863 were accompanied by their wives. Ev.-n i- 
Bosen journey of 1860, which he made alo > 
that "the reader w ii . lC6 - wor r> 
and am not a member of the Alpine Club: nay 
ascend ceases with the last phanerogamic specimen. flJtnougn 
he did, soon after this was written, beeon* 
Alpine Club, he appears never to have contribute 1 m o-- ' ""j" ^ 
and certainly never 
in a letter written in November, 1891, he writes:—- 
seems to be another member of the Alpine GIud 
bowed the knee to the Baal of mere climbing. 1 "*-d m nn .--• 
that Ball, W. Mathews, Packe and myselt 
but now I have been told of Dr. Savage, and lately of ^ •;•"■;,. 
But if Churchill never professed to take an active pan mo 
indeed to personally care for mountain-adventure h± i 
thelessmoresvmpa'thv than these passages would imp. 
special aims of 'climbers,' among whom he reckoned some 
his most intimate friends. 
