22 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



fication. He who repeats 'by heart' the rules of Bow- 

 ditch, though he does not understand the mathematical 

 principles involved in one of them, obtains a higher 

 number from the Board than he who, skilled in mathe- 

 matics, goes to the blackboard and, drawing his dia- 

 gram, can demonstrate every problem in navigation ".^ 

 Maury, no doubt, wrote this out of his own personal ex- 

 perience ; and even though the results of his examination 

 may have indicated that in the ordinary duties of his 

 profession he was not above the average, still it was to 

 be in a special field of the service that his genius was to 

 display itself. 



During the winter which Maury spent in Washington 

 he fell completely in love with his cousin, Ann Herndon, 

 who was visiting relatives in Georgetown. Hitherto 

 there had been a certain safety in numbers, as indicated 

 by the numerous references in his letters to the charms of 

 English girls and the "piercing eyes and insinuating 

 smiles" of the Brazilian and Peruvian maidens. But 

 before he went to sea again he became engaged to his 

 cousin, and on his departure he gave her a little seal 

 which was to be used only when she wrote to him ; it bore 

 the inscription of the single word Mizpah, that beautiful 

 Biblical parting salutation, "The Lord watch between 

 thee and me when we are absent one from the other". 



This love affair caused Maury to consider resigning 

 from the naval service, but his hope of getting employ- 

 ment as a surveyor did not materialize and he finally 

 concluded that he supposed Uncle Sam would have the 

 selling of his bones to the doctors. Accordingly, in June, 

 1831 he sailed again for the Pacific, this time in the 

 Falmouth. His ship touched at Rio for a brief visit, 



2 Ibid., December, 1840. 



