BETUEN OF THE DISCOVERY 457 



Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in the autumn of 1905, to 

 study medicine, 1 a choice on which Sir Joseph remarks : 



I cannot understand it. I never cared for it, and took it 

 up solely in the view of travelling. My brother Willy was 

 passionately devoted to it. (To Mrs. Paisley, August 8, 1905.) 



The newcomer was a grandchild from Australia, his son 

 Brian's daughter. ' She is, as you suppose,' he tells Mrs. 

 Paisley, ' a great interest to me. I give her half an hour of 

 Geography every morning before breakfast, and find her a 

 very apt pupil ; she is further of a happy temperament.' And 

 when at Christmas in this year he also had with him three 

 of his sons and his unmarried daughter, he called himself 

 4 especially joyful.' 



The end of the year brought him fresh echoes of his 

 earliest travels. Captain Scott returned in the Discovery, and 

 the letter of December 3 to W. E. Darwin, already quoted, 

 continues : 



I have been but once in London since you left for America 

 to see the sketches of the Antarctic Expedition, exhibited 

 in Braton Street. The Doctor of the Expedition (Wilson) is 

 a first-rate water-colourist, and his drawings, of the birds 

 especially, are I think unrivalled. His landscapes, sea- 

 scapes and ice-scapes are most interesting, including extra- 

 ordinary sunsets. 



To Mrs. Lyell, on the same day, he is even more emphatic : 

 ' Above all his drawings of birds are superb : all alive oh ! ' 



Dr. and Mrs. Wilson were soon among his guests. Of 

 others he writes to Mrs. Paisley, December 29, 1904 : 



Two days ago I had a call from Col. Younghusband 

 of the late Tibetan Expedition. He was staying for 2 days 

 at Ascot and most kindly, knowing my interest in Tibet, 

 came over to see me. He was much amused at seeing, framed 

 and hung up, a telegram which he and his Expedition sent 

 to me on its first arrival in Tibet ; 2 it was prompted by the 

 fact that they had followed my footsteps of 1849, since which 



1 He afterwards abandoned Medicine for the Law. 



2 See i. 275. 



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