^ET. 58.] TO GENERAL HOWLAND. 593 



and later I may have more to say. Can I be of any 

 use to you here ? 



Remember me kindly to Dr. Miiller, 1 to whom best 

 thanks for all the friendly services which he has ren- 

 dered me. 



Our united kind regards to Madame De Candolle, 

 and to your son (from whom I still expect a photo- 

 graph), and my wife's to yourself. We have the 

 most pleasant recollections of our brief visit to 

 Geneva. 

 'Believe me ever your devoted ASA GRAY. 



TO GENERAL HOWLAND. 



KEW, October 3, 1869. 



I don't know when you would get a response to your 

 welcome letter of August 22, which reached us here 

 in due course, so long as things went on in the ordi- 

 nary way, I working at botany as much as possible, 

 but presiding here over a considerable household, 

 some sight-seeing and much intermittent visiting. 

 But now that I am all alone, and my wife with the 

 rest of them girareing over the north of England, 

 sober reflection has its hour, and I remember the 

 friends that are far away, perhaps on the shores of 

 Italian lakes, and long to know how they get on and 

 what they are about. To attain which knowledge and 

 put myself en rapport I should first, I know, give 

 you some account of ourselves and our doings. 



But where to begin ? I think we wrote you from 

 Paris. We had three weeks there, I mostly at the 

 Jardin des Plantes till near dinner-time. . . . 



For ourselves, after cool weather in Paris we came 



1 Johannes Miiller (Argoviensis) ; late director of the Botanic 

 Garden at Geneva. Has written largely on Lichens. 



