132 SOUTH AGAIN : NEW ZEALAND AND THE CAPE 



Falklands : November 25, 1842. 



The books you send out are capital. Lindley's 

 Elements seems a most valuable work to me and the 

 very one I wanted, for I have a very high opinion of him 

 as a Nat. Order man though he makes too many it 

 is impossible not to admire the thorough knowledge he 

 has of the subject ; and now that a linear arrangement 

 will never do, and Fries 's Motto ' omnis ord. nat. circulum 

 per se clausum exhibet ' is daily gaining proof, Lindley's 

 groups and alliances of plants which, like sects, are more 

 like one another than anything else, must be invaluable. 

 ; _ I am no judge of the goodness of this arrangement of the 

 groups, but it is the throwing the Nat. Orders into groups 

 and showing the dependence of one group on another which 

 impresses me ; his theory of the mosses is an eyesore to me 

 and shows the folly of theory without practice. . . . 



As to his occupations on the treeless, wind-swept island, 

 he tells his father (May 3, 1842) : 



On this Island my time has been entirely devoted to 

 Botany. . . . Every day adds something new to my col- 

 lection, especially among the lower tribes. During my 

 late excursion, I found the Ballia Brunonii, which I have 

 now gathered all round the world. . . . Altogether this 

 place is better for Botany than I expected, and but for 

 Lichens, &c., it beats Kerguelen's Land, [though] collect- 

 ing here is no sinecure, for the days are very short and the 

 nights long. 



Later he tells his mother (August 28, 1842) : 



The weather and state of the country, now swamped, 

 prevents my making any excursions to a distance, though 

 I enjoy the short walks about the bay very much and seldom 

 go out without picking up some novelty. At present my 

 time ashore is wholly taken up with seaweeds and marine 

 animals, for which purpose I wander along the beach at 

 low water with long boots on, collecting ; but the wind is 

 so cutting and the water so cold, that I often wonder whether 

 my hands spend most of the time in the water or my pockets, 

 whither they are wont to stray, as in days of yore. 



