CHARLES DARWIN. 85 



Henslow lectured on botany, and Darwin, though " not a 

 student of botany," attended both his lectures and his 

 field excursions. Presently, then, he got an invitation to 

 Henslow's weekly evenings. So, " before long," says Mr. 

 Darwin, " I became well acquainted with Henslow^ and, 

 during the latter half of my time at Cambridge, took 

 long walks with him on most days ; so that I was called 

 by some of the Dons ' the man who walks with Henslow ; ' 

 and in the evening I was very often asked to join his 

 family dinner." Intimacy with such a man was to 

 Darwin, as he says himself, "an inestimable benefit." 

 Another friendship of moment for Darwin was that of 

 Henslow's brother-in-law, the naturalist Leonard Jenyns. 

 Through Henslow, Darwin came to know also the some- 

 what formidable Dr. Whewell, and " on several occasions 

 walked home with him at night ! " 



There are those who would look invidiously on such 

 an intimate relation as this between a young man and 

 his superior ; and who, if enemies, might even flout him 

 with a soupfon of fawn. But Charles Darwin never had an 

 enemy ; and we shall presently see how he could face, on 

 ship-board, the British captain that was over him, when 

 what was concerned (slavery) was a truth and a principle 

 that lay at his heart. 



But it was with Sedgewick that this professional 

 relation was of the greatest benefit to the ardent young 

 man, eager in the greed of his own. Sedgewick actually 

 took Darwin with him to share in, and be a witness of, 

 all that might be geologically done or said on a tour in 

 North Wales. It was so he learned his geology practic- 

 ally, not through books, but in actual fact. This tour, 

 he admits, taught him " how to make out the geology of 

 a country." What they missed even that came after- 

 wards to be as instructive a lesson as anything they 

 found. " The plainly scored rocks, the perched boulders, 



