70 THE APOTHECARIES' GARDEN 



" were accustomed to enjoy their sport in a 

 punt. Their fishing rods were placed around 

 in due order, and while they quaffed cham- 

 pagne and Burgundy, the little bells placed at 

 the extremity of each " (rod) " gave instant 

 notice of the ravenous barbel, which, after 

 swallowing the baited hook, ran away with 

 amazing swiftness, and extended the silken 

 line to its utmost extremity." 



Whether Banks' father would have chosen 

 a member of the notorious Medmenham frater- 

 nity the corrupt administrator of the Navy 

 as a companion for his son may be open to 

 doubt, but no harm, only good, came of the 

 friendship. An absorbing love of nature had 

 already taken possession of the boy. Our 

 thoughtful forefathers planted our old schools 

 and universities by the side of rivers. The 

 rich beauty of the flowers which grow by the 

 Thames at Eton ; on banks unhurt by the wash 

 of launches, untrampled by modern London, 

 had been a revelation to Joseph Banks. He 

 had even carried off to Eton from his mother's 

 dressing-room a great herbal ("Gerard's" or his 

 Herbarius, in which Dr. Payne found Sir 

 Thomas More's name) in order to study 

 botany in play- hours. And so when at anchor 

 off the Physic Garden on summer nights, 

 when the little hawk-bells on the fishing rods 

 were not tinkling, and the exciting sport of 

 playing fish by starlight had quieted down, 

 and Lord Sandwich, with nothing to interrupt 

 him but the ripple of the water against the 

 punt, told stories of his expeditions all round 

 the Mediterranean Sea, Banks must have been 



