362 THE KETURN FROM INDIA 



In May 1858 he complains to Harvey of being appallingly 

 behindhand with his work, and in June adds : 



I am working now extremely hard at these Indian collec- 

 tions, of which I am utterly sick. I expect another year will 

 . see them all arranged and incorporated in Herb. — and then 

 comes describing. 



In August, three weeks' enforced absence from the work had 

 been such a gnawing anxiety that he could not think of pro- 

 longing it, since, there being no means of warming the distri- 

 buting room, it was imperative to make an end before winter, 

 lest it should drag on and cumber all the next year. By 

 mid-November he came to the end of all he could do that 

 year, namely 160,000 ticketed species. ' As for myself,' he 

 tells Bentham, ' I am in statu quo, but considerably thinner, 

 I am told.' 



This was one heavy item. Then there was the Tasmanian 

 Flora. ' I find it tremendous work,' and again (Aug. 8, 1859), 



this luckless Essay of mine has broken my back. I had no 

 idea of the mass of material I had accumulated for it, or the 

 time it would take to digest it ; it is not half printed, and if 

 I leave it in the present state for 2 months, it wdll take me 

 many days to begin again, if indeed I ever could work 

 myself up to completing it after such a break. I am daily 

 working every spare moment at it, and have still several 

 sheets to print and some to rewrite from the rough. 



Then he was planning out the Genera Plantarum with 

 Bentham, * which I am deeply pondering.' His father's 

 illness and prolonged absence in the summer of- 1859 threw 

 on his shoulders an accumulation of correspondence and all 

 the work in the Garden, with the added responsibilities of 

 looking after the erection of the large new Conservatory. Yet 

 when his father did return for a few days there was no relief, 

 for 



he now likes to consult me about everythiiig he does, so that 

 when he was here I had hterally more to do than when he 



was away ! 



