JOUENAL AND LETTEBS 87 



copies of them, are faithfully preserved, bound in a large quarto 

 volume. His letters home were generally transcribed by 

 the willing hand of his mother who frequently Johnsonised 

 the style to her own liking for distribution among friends 

 and relations, official news being of the scantiest, while letters, 

 to these others, were regularly sent to her to copy. This solidly 

 bound volume contains fifty-two autograph letters, ranging 

 from four to twenty-seven closely written quarto sheets in a 

 minute hand, twenty-nine in copy only, and twenty-seven 

 duplicates which had returned in course of time to Kew. A 

 still larger companion volume contains 234 letters received by 

 him during this period. 



So much of this abundant material may be cited as will 

 suffice to show the impression made upon his mind by new 

 scenes and new ideas, his occasional jaunts, more and more 

 coloured by his scientific objects, a few sketches of the people 

 with whom he came in contact, a passage or two to show his 

 sensitiveness to Nature, and his power of describing what he 

 saw. 



At Madeira, as ever and again on his travels, his eye is 

 instantly caught by any likeness to his beloved Highlands, 

 whose beauty had sunk deep into his mind from his earliest 

 days. Equally he recalls the pictures of the same scenes 

 in the books of travel so well known to himself and to his 

 father. 



On first nearing Madeira, I was strongly reminded of 

 some of the islands on the West of Argyllshire, only the 

 volcanic rocks are much redder, and clothed here and there 

 with low brushwood ; the tops of the hills are often capped 

 with pines. 



The ravines are quite like Scotch ones, but more sparingly 

 wooded, and the faces of the very deep ravines are most 

 admirably like the view in Webb and Berthelot, full of 

 vertical perpendicular lines which are dotted with trees. 

 These views came into my mind directly I saw the 

 realities. 



With the botanist's eye he notes for his father the botanist, 

 the belt of chestnuts running halfway up the mountains : ' the 



