198 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



" many wild oats yet to sow." Yet in the sowing of them a trans- 

 formation took place from the pleasure-seeking boy of unformed 

 character controlled by any of many inherited tendencies, to the 

 purposeful man seeking to extend human knowledge and with a 

 character moulded firmly to opinions, which changed relatively little 

 during the remainder of life. How sad it seems that all power of 

 tracing the transformation of these fallow years has perished with 

 the letters from and to him of this period ! 



The account Francis Galton has provided in his Memories of the 

 travel in Egypt and Syria was written in 1908. It is more elaborated 

 than the few simple notes he put together in 1885, twenty-three years 

 earlier, of the same journeyings. In Chapter VI of the MeTnories 

 Galton gives no date to his departure for Egypt. In the account of 

 1885, he states that he "started for the East in September (I think) 

 1845." But there is in existence a playful letter from his friend 

 Henry Hallam, dated Wraxall Lodge, Thursday, October 3rd, without 

 year. The contents of this letter seem to indicate that Galton had 

 asked Hallam to accompany him to Egypt, and if this be so, Galton 

 did not start till somewhere near the anniversary of his father's death", 

 and thus we have lost the record of one whole year of his life. The 

 letter from Hallam runs : 



My dear Galton, — I have been deliberating since I received your letter on the 

 desirability of joining you, and though finally overcome by the prospect of minor and 

 highly conventional difficulties relating to degrees and other matters equally con- 

 temptible, I envy you exceedingly. The pleasure of shooting at so large a mark as 

 a hippopotamus of respectable size is peculiarly attractive to the mind of the infant 

 sportsman, who like myself has been vainly endeavouring to rid creation of an orthodox 

 number of partridges during the last month. I trust, however, that the terror of my 

 arms is beginning to be spread in the neighbourhood, as I have been given to under- 

 stand that a number of highly respectable pheasants, the fathers of families whose 

 custom it has been for many years to insure their lives on the first of October have this 

 year been either totally refused or accepted only on the payment of such an extravagant 

 sum by their respective oflSces as must obviously have reference to the introduction of 

 some new element into the sporting world to which it would be indelicate in me to refer 

 more closely. Still, as I said, I gasp after the blood of Pachydermata, and under proper 

 encouragement would direct my artillery with great hope of success against any 

 inoffensive animal of large size, and easily vulnerable whom I might find sitting on 

 the banks of the Nile. 



• It may be doubted whether the legal business of winding up an estate like that of 

 Tertius Galton could be completed much under a year. 



