1850 SAILS FOR ENGLAND 75 



time out of Sydney harbour, bound for England by 

 way of the Horn. In spite of his cheerful anticipa- 

 tions, Huxley was not to see his future wife again for 

 five years more, when he was at length in a position 

 to bid her come and join him. During the three years 

 of their engagement in Australia, they had at least 

 been able to see each other at intervals, and to be 

 together for months at a time. In the long periods 

 of absence, also, they had invented a device to cheat 

 the sense of separation. Each kept a particular journal, 

 to be exchanged when they met again, and only to 

 be read, day by day, during the next voyage. But 

 now it was very different, their only means of com- 

 munication being the slow agency of the post, beset 

 with endless possibilities of misunderstanding when 

 it brought belated answers to questions already 

 months old and out of date in the changed aspect of 

 circumstances. These perils, however, they weathered, 

 and it proves how deep in the moral nature of each 

 the bond between them was rooted, that in the end 

 they passed safely through the still greater danger of 

 imperceptibly growing estranged from one another 

 under the influence of such utterly different sur- 

 roundings. 



A kindly storm which forced the old ship to put 

 into the Bay of Islands to repair a number of small 

 leaks that rendered the lower deck uninhabitable, 

 made it possible for Huxley to send back a letter 

 that should reach Australia in one month instead of 

 ten after his departure. 



