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* THE HIMALAYAN JOUENALS ' PUBLISHED 363 



As a last touch, he was out of his old house and not yet in his 

 new one, where the workmen were in possession. Much of this 

 labour he had foreseen, but he had not foreseen its cumulative 

 effect. Accordingly (August 8, 1859) : 



I write till my fingers ache, tramp the Gardens and grounds 

 till I am foot-sore, and go to bed at night to ruminate on the 

 httle I have done in the day. My wife presses me to go and 

 join you, but with such a prospect before me I feel it would be 

 folly or something worse, and the ' Genera,' which I am 

 anxious to begin as soon as the V.D.L. Flora is off hands, 

 would then be indefinitely postponed. 



Staying alone all the summer at his father's house, for he 

 had sent his wife and children to the Henslows', he reluctantly 

 gave up the holiday he had planned to take with Bentham. 



Meantime the 'Himalayan Journals; or, Notes of a 

 Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the 

 Khasia Mountains, &c.,' were published in 1854. These two 

 volumes, containing together more than 900 pages of incident 

 and adventure, as well as picturesque description and the 

 most varied scientific notes, were ' dedicated to Charles Darwin 

 by his affectionate friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker.' 



The first edition met with instant success. A second, 

 slightly abridged, followed in the next year with less good 

 fortune. In 1891 a one volume edition was brought out in 

 the Minerva Library, and was reissued in 1905. 



The Journals ensured their author the highest reputation 

 as a scientific traveller. The permanent results drawn from 

 observations in so many branches of science have already 

 been noted. His own view of it appears from a letter of thanks 

 to Berkeley. 



I am greatly dehghted with your hearty praise of my 

 book. I did really take so much pains with it, and have for 

 so many years looked forward to the pubhcation of such a 

 book, that I keenly appreciate the favourable notice taken of 

 it by my friends and the public. To write a book of the 

 sort, after travels of the sort, has been the pole-star of my 

 life from earhest childhood, and now that it is really all over 



