I 



BOTANY AT SEA 71 



Botanical work on board ship was done under difficulties 

 of its own, especially at the outset. As has been seen, the 

 i early collections found small favour in the sight of his scientific 

 ^piends at home, who, as his father said, looked to the actual 

 results apart from inexperience and the extenuating circum- 

 stances of drought ashore and wet on board, when in the tropics 

 the specimens pressed in the ordinary blotting-paper fermented, 

 and the presence of the passengers for the Cape left no room 

 for dealing properly with the plants. When they left, the 

 sick bay was available for the naturahsts, 



and a great comfort it is [he writes on March 28, 1840], as 

 it is spacious, and hitherto I have been very much at a loss 

 where to lay out my plants, not liking to take advantage 

 of the Captain's cabin for so extensive a job, and our berth 

 being too full during the day to grant me room enough. 

 Hitherto I have always laid them out and changed them 

 after my messmates have turned in, which often kept me 

 up very late after my excursions ; further, until the Captain 

 had reduced his cabin into order I had no place to put my 

 collections, and they used to get sadly kicked about the 

 lower deck ; now, however, I have a nice cabinet in the cabin, 

 where there is nothing to fear but the universal dampness 

 of the ship, and a few cockroaches which did me some Httle 

 damage, eating out the stems of some plants, and leaving 

 the leaves. 



He accepted his father's criticisms as a stimulus to better f 

 work. The conditions being what they were, this^ criticism^ 

 *was perhaps rather uncompromising, considering that when he 

 sent his collections of some 200 species home from St. Helena 

 (February 3, 1840) he did not himself think he had much to 

 show for his labour : 



Some are good specimens, others are only sent as 

 mementoes. I can hardly expect you to be much pleased 

 with them, though I assure you I never spent an idle day 

 ashore ; nevertheless I never came off at night, without 

 being convinced that I might have done much more than 

 was done. Capt. Boss wished me to delay sending them 

 till we arrive at the Cape. ... I do not care that my 



