ENGAGEMENT 219 



suite. 



With this another early ambition was realised. It has 

 already been told how Cook's Voyages, with the picture of 

 Kerguelen's Land, was one of his earliest recollections in reading. 

 The other was Turner's * Travels in Tibet.' Here his imagina- 

 tion was gripped by the description of Lama worship and the 

 great mountain Chumalari. There he notes, * It is singular 

 that K. Land should have been the first strange country. I 

 ever visited, and that in the first King's ship which has touched 

 there since Cook's voyage,* and that later ' I have been nearly 

 the fijst European who has approached Chumalari since Turner's 

 embassy ' (in 1783). 



The disappointment at Edinburgh, despite the fatigue and 

 momentary sense of failure, had never gone very deep. The 

 years of steady work since returning from the Antarctic, 

 though not bringing him an important appointment, had done 

 more by preparing him for the new venture, which had un- 

 expectedly created the long-desired link between his scientific 

 work and official Kew. Now his second great scientific ambition 

 was fulfilled, following but a few months after a more intimate 

 felicity. No wonder that during these last days in England 

 his father could write, * I think I never saw him so cheerful 

 and happy.' For in the beginning of July he became engaged 

 to Frances Henslow, eldest daughter of the Cambridge Professor 

 of Botany, so widely beloved for his personal qualities, who is 

 still remembered outside the circle of specialists as the man 

 who first made nature study a living pursuit among the school 

 children of his village, and the man who greatly helped to 

 turn Charles Darwin to a scientific career. Frances was a 

 close friend of his sister Elizabeth ; and now matters came 

 to a head during the * week's holiday and idleness,* as he 

 called it, at Oxford during the meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion, to the great joy of Elizabeth. 



It is characteristic of the strict family regime of the Hookers 

 that in his announcement of this happy event to Dawson 

 Turner * no flowers ' were permissible — no approach even to 

 * flowers.' Joseph opines that, * as an affectionate grandfather 



