Ch. II.] CAMBRIDGE. 23 



a good walk and talk with him about Natural History. I 

 became also acquainted with several other men older than me, 

 who did not care much about science, but were friends of 

 Henslow. One was a Scotchman, brother of Sir Alexander 

 Ramsay, and tutor of Jesus College ; ho was a delightful man, 

 but did not live for many years. Another was Mr. Dawes, 

 afterwards Dean of Hereford, and famous for his success in 

 the education of the poor. These men and others of the samo 

 standing, together with Henslow, used sometimes to take 

 distant excursions into the country, which I was allowed to 

 join, and they were most agreeable. 



Looking back, I infer that there must have been something in 

 me a little superior to the common run of youths, otherwise 

 the above-mentioned men, so much older than me and higher 

 in academical position, would never have allowed me to asso- 

 ciate with them. Certainly I was not aware of any such 

 superiority, and I remember one of my sporting friends, Turner, 

 who saw me at work with my beetles, saying that I should 

 some day be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the notion 

 seemed to me preposterous. 



During my last year at Cambridge, I read with care and 

 profound interest Humboldt's Personal Narrative. This work, 

 and Sir J. Herschers Introduction to the Study of Natural Philo- 

 sophy, stirred up in me a burning zeal to add even the most 

 humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science. 

 No one or a dozen other books influenced me nearly so much 

 as these two. I copied out from Humboldt long passages 

 about Teneriffe, and read them aloud on one of the above- 

 mentioned excursions, to (I think) Henslow, Ramsay, and 

 Dawes, for on a previous occasion I had talked about the 

 glories of Teneriffe, and some of the party declared they would 

 endeavour to go there ; but I think they were only half in 

 earnest. I was, however, quite in earnest, and got an intro- 

 duction to a merchant in London to enquire about ships ; but 

 the scheme was, of course, knocked on the head by the voyage 

 of the Beagle. 



My summer vacations were given up to collecting beetles, to 

 some reading, and short tours. In the autumn my whole time 

 was devoted to shooting, chiefly at Woodhouse and Maer, and 

 sometimes with young Eyton of Eyton. Upon the whole the 

 three years which I spent at Cambridge were the most joyful 

 in my happy life ; for I was then in excellent health, and 

 almost always in high spirits. 



As I had at first come up to Cambridge at Christmas, I was 

 forced to keep two terms after passing my final examination, at 



