GROWTH OF IDEAS 257 



travels. In 1869 he spent the autumn vacation 

 in Scandinavia. In 1871 he was in the island of 

 Lesina in Dalmatia, where he, the arch-heretic, 

 lived in a monastery with a jolly abbot. From 

 beautiful Eagusa he made an interesting excursion 

 to Cattaro and Montenegro. In 1873 he went to 

 Egypt and Asia Minor, visiting Athens, Con- 

 stantinople, Brussa, and the Black Sea. The 

 culmination of this journey was a visit to the 

 splendid coral banks of Tur, in the Ked Sea. The 

 Khedive, Ismail Pacha, put a Government steamer 

 at his disposal for the journey. The excursion has 

 been superbly described by Haeckel himself in the 

 little volume, The Corals of Arabia (1876). The 

 same volume contains the first specimens of his 

 landscapes in water-colour. He spent the spring 

 of 1875 in Corsica and Sardinia. On that occasion 

 Oscar Hertwig discovered, in his presence, the 

 process of fertilisation in the sea-urchin ; his 

 discoveries will long remain a turning-point in 

 the history of our knowledge of sexual generation 

 (one of the deepest mysteries in nature). In the 

 autumn of 1876 he was at work on the coast of 

 Great Britain, and reached as far as Ireland. In 

 the spring of 1877 he was at Ithaca and Corfu ; 

 in the autumn we find him on the Riviera. In 

 1878 he went first to Fiume and Pola on the 

 Adriatic, and afterwards on an Atlantic excursion 

 to Brittany, Normandy, and Jersey. In the 

 autumn of 1879 he was in Holland and Scotland. 

 In 1881 he made the second longest journey of 

 his life. He secured permission to absent himself 



17 



