AT THE UNIVERSITY 43 



or stimulus from our professor we were thrown upon our own 

 resources and mutual help. Our daily conversation turned 

 largely, apart from matters arising out of our immediate duties, 

 around philosophical questions renewed occasionally in later 

 years. On his side he was naturally influenced by his inheri- 

 tance from Covenanting ancestors ; I, on mine, by that from 

 unorthodox and agnostic surroundings. As far as I am con- 

 cerned, these most friendly conversations affected the whole of 

 my more mature opinions. Chemically our life at the Ander- 

 sonian was unsatisfactory. ... As a consequence we both 

 freed ourselves as soon as practicable from our engagements. 

 He in 1874 entered into the serene and healthy atmosphere of 

 the Glasgow University." 



In the summer of 1873 Kamsay joined his uncle 

 Andrew, who, with his sister and eldest daughter, were 

 visiting the Rhine valley with a view to geological 

 investigations. Two letters, one from Bonn (describing 

 visits to Brussels, Antwerp and Cologne) and another 

 from Lucerne, give an account in his usual frolicsome 

 style of their chief adventures : 



" LUCERNE, 1st September, 1873. 

 MY DEAR MAMA, 



Here we are at Lucerne and have the prospect of 

 staying till the day after to-morrow. We are going up the Rigi 

 this forenoon : Aunt Eliza and Ella are going to glide up by rail and 

 we are going to attack his monster sides ferociously, geologically 

 and pedestrianly. The view is improving. It rained yesterday 

 most persistently and with an energy worthy of a better cause. 

 So we went to church in the morning and dined in the afternoon. 

 Aunt Eliza took a scuttle in the afternoon into a R.C. Church 

 and participated in the holy water and the various benefits 

 accruing therefrom, thus showing that extremes meet. Ella, 



