9 o 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, vi 



I am quite pleased to hear of the theological turn of the 

 family. It must be a drop of blood from one of your eight 

 great-grandfathers, for none of your ancestors that I have 

 known would have developed in this way. 



. . . Best love to Nettie and Harry. Tell the former that 

 cabbages do not cost 55. apiece, and the latter that n P.M. is the 

 cloture. Ever your affectionate PATER. 



HOTEL BRITANNIQUE, NAPLES, Nov. 30, 1884. 



MY DEAR FOSTER Which being St. Andrew's Day, I think 

 the expatriated P. ought to give you some account of himself. 



We had a prosperous journey to Locarno, but there plumped 

 into bitter cold weather, and got chilled to the bone as the only 

 guests in the big hotel, though they did their best to make us 

 comfortable. I made a shot at bronchitis, but happily failed, 

 and got all right again. 



Pallanza was as bad. At Milan temperature at noon 39 F., 

 freezing at night. Verona much the same. Under these circum- 

 stances, we concluded to give up Venice and made for Bologna. 

 There found it rather colder. Next Ravenna, where it snowed. 

 However, we made ourselves comfortable in the queer hotel, and 

 rejoiced in the mosaics of that sepulchral marsh. 



At Bologna I had assurances that the Sicilian quarantine 

 was going to be taken off at once, and as the reports of the rail- 

 way travelling and hotels in Calabria were not encouraging, I 

 determined to make for Naples, or rather, by way of extra cau- 

 tion, for Castellamare. All the way to Ancona the Apennines 

 were covered with snow, and much of the plain also. Twenty 

 miles north of Ancona, however, the weather changed to warm 

 summer, and we rejoiced accordingly. At Foggia I found that 

 the one decent hotel that used to exist was non-extant, so we 

 went on to Naples. 



Arriving at 10.30 very tired, got humbugged by a lying 

 Neapolitan, who palmed himself off as the commissaire of the 

 Hotel Bristol, and took us into an omnibus belonging to another 

 hotel, that of the British being, as he said, " broke." After a 

 drive of three miles or so got to the Bristol and found it shut 

 up ! After a series of adventures and a good deal of strong 

 language on my part, knocked up the people here, who took us 

 in, though the hotel was in reality shut up like most of those in 

 Naples.* 



* Owing to the cholera and consequent dearth of travellers. 



