AUTOBIOGRAPHY 9 



asked him to recommend an assistant surgeon who knew 

 something of science ; would I like that ? Of course I jumped 

 at the offer. " Very well, I give you leave ; go to London at 

 once and see Captain Stanley." I went, saw my future com- 

 mander, who was very civil to me, and promised to ask that 5 

 I should be appointed to his ship, as in due time I was. It 

 is a singular thing that, during the few months of my stay at 

 Haslar, I had among my messmates two future Directors-Gen- 

 eral of the Medical Service of the Navy (Sir Alexander Arm- 

 strong and Sir John Watt-Reid), with the present President of 10 

 the College of Physicians and my kindest of doctors, Sir 

 Andrew Clark. 



Life on board Her Majesty's ship in those days was a very 

 different affair from what it is now, and ours was exception- 

 ally rough, as we were often many months without receiving 15 

 letters or seeing any civilized people but ourselves. In ex- 

 change, we had the interest of being about the last voyagers, 

 I suppose, to whom it could be possible to meet with people 

 who knew nothing of firearms as we did on the south coast 

 of New Guinea and of making acquaintance with a variety 20 

 of interesting savage and semicivilized people. But, apart 

 from experience of this kind and the opportunities offered 

 for scientific work, to me, personally, the cruise was extremely 

 valuable. It was good for me to live under sharp discipline ; 

 to be down on the realities of existence by living on bare 25 

 necessaries ; to find out how extremely well worth living life 

 seemed to be when one woke up from a night's rest on a soft 

 plank, with the sky for canopy and cocoa and weevily biscuit 

 the sole prospect for breakfast ; and, more especially, to learn 

 to work for the sake of what I got for myself out of it, even 30 

 if it all went to the bottom and I along with it. My brother 

 officers were as good fellows as sailors ought to be and gener- 

 ally are, but, naturally, they neither knew nor cared anything 

 about my pursuits, nor understood why I should be so zealous 



