48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



the University, attendance being quite voluntary ; but 

 I was so sickened with lectures at Edinburgh that I 



o 



did not even attend Sedgwick's eloquent and interest- 

 ing lectures. Had I done so I should probably have 

 become a geologist earlier than I did. I attended, 

 however, Henslow's lectures on Botany, and liked 

 them much for their extreme clearness, and the admi- 

 rable illustrations ; but I did not study botany. Hen- 

 slow used to take his pupils, including several of the 

 older members of the University, field excursions, on 

 foot or in coaches, to distant places, or in a barge 

 down the river, and lectured on the rarer plants and 

 animals which were observed. These excursions were 

 delightful. 



Although, as we shall presently see, there were 

 some redeeming features in my life at Cambridge, my 

 time was sadly wasted there, and worse than wasted. 

 From my passion for shooting and for hunting, and, 

 when this failed, for riding across country, I got into 

 a sporting set, including some dissipated low-minded 

 young men. We used often to dine together in the 

 evening, though these dinners often included men of a 

 higher stamp, and we sometimes drank too much, 

 with jolly singing and playing at cards afterwards. I 

 know that I ought to feel ashamed of days and even- 

 ings thus spent, but as some of my friends were very 

 pleasant, and we were all in the highest spirits, I 

 cannot help looking back to these times with much 

 pleasure. 



But I am glad to think that I had many other 

 friends of a widely different nature. I was very in- 



