Autobiography 7 



weight, and I licked my adversary effectually. However, 

 one of my first experiences of the extremely rough-and- 

 ready nature of justice, as exhibited by the course of 

 things in general, arose out of the fact that I the victor 

 had a black eye, while he the vanquished had none, so 5 

 that I got into disgrace and he did not. We made it up, 

 and thereafter I was unmolested. One of the greatest 

 shocks I ever received in my life was to be told a dozen 

 years afterwards by the groom who brought me my horse 

 in a stable-yard in Sydney that he was my quondam an- 10 

 tagonist. He had a long story of family misfortune to 

 account for his position, but at that time it was necessary 

 to deal very cautiously with mysterious strangers in New 

 South Wales, and on inquiry I found that the unfortunate 

 young man had not only been " sent out," but had under- 15 

 gone more than one colonial conviction. 



As I grew older, my great desire was to be a me- 

 chanical engineer, but the fates were against this and, 

 while very young, I commenced the study of medicine 

 under a medical brother-in-law. But, though the In- 20 

 stitute of Mechanical Engineers would certainly not own 

 me, I am not sure that I have not all along been a sort 

 of mechanical engineer in partibus inftdelium. I am now 

 occasionally horrified to think how very little I ever knew 

 or cared about medicine as the art of healing. The only 25 

 part of my professional course which really and deeply in- 

 terested me was physiology, which is the mechanical engi- 

 neering of living machines; and, notwithstanding that 

 natural science has been my proper business, I am afraid 

 there is very little of the genuine naturalist in me. I 30 

 never collected anything, and species work was always a 

 burden to me; what I cared for was the architectural 

 and engineering part of the business, the working out of 

 the wonderful unity of plan in the thousands and thou- 



