346 LIFE AT DOWN, ^TAT. 33-45. [1849. 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, October 12th, 1849. 



... By the way, one of the pleasantest parts of the Brit- 

 ish Association was my journey down to Birmingham with 

 Mrs. Sabine, Mrs. Reeve, and the Colonel ; also Col. Sykes 

 and Porter. Mrs. Sabine and myself agreed wonderfully on 

 many points, and in none more sincerely than about you. We 

 spoke about your letters from the Erebus ; and she quite 

 agreed with me, that you and the author,^ of the description 

 of the cattle hunting in the Falklands, would have made a 

 capital book together ! A very nice woman she is, and so is 

 her sharp and sagacious mother. . . . Birmingham was very flat 

 compared to Oxford, though I had my wife with me. We 

 saw a good deal of the Lyells and Horners and Robinsons 

 (the President) ; but the place was dismal, and I was pre- 

 vented, by being unwell, from going to W^arwick, though that, 

 /. ^., the party, by all accounts, was wonderfully inferior to 

 Blenheim, not to say anything of that heavenly day at Drop- 

 more. One gets weary of all the spouting. . . . 



You ask about my cold-water cure ; I am going on very 

 well, and am certainly a little better every month, my nights 

 mend much slower than my days. I have built a douche, and 

 am to go on through all the winter, frost or no frost. My 

 treatment now is lamp five times per week, and shallow bath 

 for five minutes afterwards ; douche daily for five minutes, 

 and dripping sheet daily. The treatment is wonderfully tonic, 

 and I have had more better consecutive days this month 

 than on any previous ones. ... I am allowed to work now 

 two and a half hours daily, and I find it as much as I can do ; 

 for the cold-water cure, together with three short walks, is 

 curiously exhausting ; and I am actually forced to go to bed 

 at eight o'clock completely tired. I steadily gain in weight, 



* Sir J. Hooker wrote the spirited description of cattle hunting in Sir 

 J. Ross's ' Voyage of Discovery in the Southern Regions,' 1847, vol. ii., 

 p. 245- 



