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AID FKOM BOSS 69 



of the tables under the stern windows is mine wholly ; also 

 a drawer for my microscope, a locker for my papers, etc. 

 To me he is most kind and attentive, — forestalling my 

 wishes in many respects. One day he finds a ' box that 

 will do nicely for Hooker,* then a seat at his cabin table, 

 and a place always clear for me to sit down, when tired 

 of standing at the drawing-table. Two towing nets are 

 constantly overboard for sea animals. . . . Almost every 

 day I draw, sometimes all day long and till two and three in 

 the morning, the Captain directing me ; he sits on one side 

 of the table, writing and figuring at night, and I on the 

 other, drawing. Every now and then he breaks off and 

 comes to my side, to see what I am after. . . . 



I have now drawings of nearly 100 Marine Crustacea 

 and MoUusca, almost all microscopic ; some of them are 

 very badly done, but I think that practice is improving 

 me, and as I go on, I hope that some will be useful on my 

 return. Were it not for drawing, my sea hfe would not be 

 half so pleasant to me as it is. In the Cabin, with every 

 comfort around me, I can imagine myself at home. Other 

 duties are given me to do ; indeed, on finding how idle I 

 was to be I asked the Captain if I could not in any way be 

 useful to him, when he gave me the Hygrometer to take 

 four times a day, at 9, 12, 3, and 9 ; and for two days in the 

 week at 3 a.m., after the registering there is to draw out 

 tables for different Meteorological purposes. The Captain 

 has a compound microscope exactly like your large one, 

 which I use whenever I require it, indeed he has made every- 

 thing in his cabin my own. He has expressed himself much 

 pleased with my Botanical collections, from which I judge 

 that he never saw a really good collection, for I never look 

 back upon a day in which I should not have done more 

 than has been done, though at the time I hardly well knew 

 how to carry what I had got. ... It would have amused 

 you to have come into the cabin and seen the Captain and 

 myself with our sleeves tucked up picking seaweed roots, 

 and depositing the treasures to be drawn, in salt water, in 

 basins, quietly popping the others into spirits. Some of 

 the seaweeds he lays out for himself, often sitting at one 

 end of the table laying them out with infinite pains, whilst 

 I am drawing at the other end till 12 and 1 in the morning, 



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