Characterisation, especially by Letters 



567 



you liked what you saw of the "unspeakable" Turks. You must tell me which of the various 

 sea-port rascalities you come across strikes you as the worst. I should back those at the Piraeus. 

 I have tried to make a tinted map of European knavery, marking the most knavish parts with 

 the darkest tints. English public schools were the whitest, and shades thickened about the 

 Levant. A friend who in his youth was appointed (?) "Judge of Appeal " to the Ionian Islands, 

 told me there were more cases of Appeal (not of Law Suits) in one of the Islands than there 

 were adult male inhabitants. I am in for law now, to try to get some compensation for my 

 burnt clothes. I don't expect any but shall certainly have to pay the lawyer. Best love to M. L. 



Ever affectionately, Francis Galton. 



San Sebastian (we leave to-morrow). March 25, 1 90G (one quarter of the year gone). 



Dearest Milly, Your dates will apparently suit us well and accordingly I will arrange 

 generally, leaving details for later on. We have had some abominable weather, cold and snow 

 storms, just like you have had according to the papers. So expeditions have been nil. I wonder 

 if the following got into the English papers. A week ago, a party of 

 friends, including the French Consul and a charming Spanish lady, a 

 quarter and more English in her ways, drove some 1 2 miles from here to 

 visit a famous grotto and cave (prehistoric remains, etc.). It is a long 

 way underground; the party go with lighted candles; at one place 

 the path crosses a deep crevasse, over which a wooden bridge had been 

 put four years ago, for the King of Spain. Nobody had visited the cave 

 since. The wood had rotted, the bridge gave way and down went the 

 two. The lady stuck 10 metres down against some debris of the bridge. 

 The Consul fell as far again down, upon a ridge. Fancy the alarm ! It 

 was two hours before ropes and help could be procured and they were 

 pulled up; the lady in blood and dishevelraent, the Consul barely con- 

 scious, having been stunned. They are, I believe, not seriously the 

 worse for it all. 



A narrow shave like this suggests epitaphs. I heard the following lately, and the last two 

 lines "obsess" me. I don't know to what careless, vicious young genius they referred. 



"He revelled 'neath the moon, 

 He slept beneath the sun, 

 He lived a life of going-to-do 

 And he died with nothing done." 



So the Noteworthy Families is at length published and you have received your copy. I am 

 giad to have made much of Schuster. He is a good, gentlemanly fellow and feebly protested* 

 against it, but it has encouraged him ami be is working hard at families now. I think I told 

 you of the speciality of these parts of inlaying iron with gold thread and making ornaments. 

 They do it very cleverly and prettily. The pattern is engraved, the very thin wire is punched 

 in with a fine punch, the whole is heated which somehow solders the two metals, and then it is 

 polished up. This exceedingly fine work is done by the naked eye. The man I saw at work is 

 a fine big fellow, but his sight must be such that he could see as much detail in the eye of 

 a needle as you and I could in — what shall I say — not exactly a "barn-door." 



— Lb.dy 



Consul 



<^ Ml LUCENT :]> ] 



I got him to do a brooch like the above (Eva sketched the outline), which I will send as 

 a memento, when we return within reach of easy and honest posts. After beginning this letter 

 by abusing the weather it has suddenly changed into calm sunshine and we are going at once 

 for a good expedition, so I will finish this later. 



Monday morning. We had a grand day yesterday to Loyola's place — perfect weather, two 

 hours train, four and a half in carriage in all. The place itself seemed hardly what it should be. 

 1 had hoped to find a record in portraits, pictures and maps, of the progress and misfortunes of 



