CHAP, vii.] Return of Sir John Herschel. 293 



SIR JOHN HERSCHEL TO MISS HERSCHEL. 



LONDON, May 20, 1838. 



Here we are, my dear aunt, at last, safely landed and 

 housed, all in good health and, as you may suppose, in 

 good spirits at our return. We ourselves and our six little 

 ones were very comfortable during our nine weeks' voyage in 

 the good ship Windsor, which is lying snug and sound in 

 the river at Blackwall, with all our things on board, tele- 

 scopes and all (as well as the astronomical results of our 

 expedition). We left our ship, however, at the entrance of 

 the Channel, and got to London in a steamer under the flag 

 of King Leopold, of Belgium, which, having been to 

 Glasgow to take in her machinery, was returning without 

 passengers, not yet being fitted up for their reception. This 

 was a most opportune and unexpected piece of good fortune, 

 as I assure you we found most sensibly, by the non-arrival of 

 the ship till this morning, having been four days longer at 

 sea, beating about against contrary winds. I have more 

 particulars to tell than would fill this paper, which I must 

 reserve till our meeting, which will not now be longer de- 

 layed than is indispensable for getting our baggage on shore, 

 and passing it through the Custom House, and transport- 

 ing it by a barge to Windsor, and so to Slough. I hope 

 and trust to find you as well in health as your two letters to 

 John Stewart and Mary Baldwin allow us to suppose 



r 



The visit promised in the foregoing letter was 

 paid in July, when Sir John Herschel, accompanied 

 by his little son, spent a few days with his aunt, 

 whose intense anxiety as to the proper treatment 

 of her little grand-nephew his sleep, his food, his 

 playthings kept her in a constant state of alarm on 



