PAKIS FEIENDSHIPS 185 



as he is in all that concerns Botany. I think I have reasoned 

 him out of this or shall have before long, for he is both modest 

 and open to reason. 



His drawings of the genera of Algae are wonderfully 

 numerous and beautiful ; I often thought how numerous 

 your exclamations of come bella would have been, had you 

 seen them. 



The Botanists here have not ceased being kind to me, and 

 such a three weeks of being lionised I never at all expected. 

 I am quite aware that this is owing to my bearing your name, 

 but so far out of sight as you are, it was very unexpected. 

 Were it not that the style of living (or rather killing one- 

 self) here is very prejudicial, I should wish you to come here 

 one spring, but I am sure you would be made ill, as I have 

 been, and only recovered by dint of sticking to Seine water 

 and letting vin ordinaire alone. This was a fortnight ago, 

 and my poisoner was M. Gay, who eternally complained of 

 the badness of his dinner, and made Webb 1 and me eat and 

 especially drink more than we liked by dint of a similar 

 pressing to what you underwent in Ireland. The poor man 

 evidently thought us great guests, and that we were too 

 proud for his table perhaps. . . . 



(February 27.) . . . Humboldt I saw very often, some- 

 times three times a day, for he was never tired of coming to 

 ask me questions about my voyage ; he certainly is still a 

 most wonderful man, with a sagacity and memory and 

 capability for generalising that are quite marvellous. I 

 gave him my book, which delighted him much ; he read 

 through the first three numbers, and I suppose noted down 

 thirty or forty things which he asked me particulars about. 

 I left him at the third number, and as he paid me two visits 

 whilst I was out on the morning I left, he has doubtless not 

 digested it all. I bade him three goodbyes the day before 



1 Philip Barker Webb (1793-1854) of Milford House, Surrey, early came into 

 a fortune which enabled him to travel and pursue his studies in geology and 

 botany. His observations on the Troad and his Iter Hispaniense were followed 

 by his work on Madeira and the Canaries, where he spent 1828-30 with Berthe- 

 lot, a young Frenchman who had already been eight years studying the islands. 

 In 1833 they established themselves in Paris, where their great work, Histoire 

 naturelle des lies Canaries took fourteen years to produce (1836-50). The 

 years 1848-50 he spent botanising in Italy, as a sequel to which he left his large 

 collections and herbarium to the museum at Florence, then under his friend 

 Parlatore. 



