208 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



I have this summer gone back to my Fishes and with 

 the help of an excellent assistant, C. 0. Whitman, have 

 some good things. We shall hope to publish early next 

 year a good Memoir, made up of all my accumulations 

 for twenty years and a careful revision by an outsider 

 during two years. 



I almost forgot to say how pleased your friends here 

 were at the action of the Royal Society in electing their 

 new President ! 



In the winter of 1883-84 Agassiz chose India as the 

 goal of his annual journey to get away from the cold 

 weather. His letters from there are those of a casual 

 traveller in a well-known land, who obtained his first 

 glimpse of the Himalayas from Darjeeling, and visited 

 most of the cities which make India a pilgrimage to the 

 English. One of his experiences was, however, unusual, 

 for he saw the installation of the Nizam at Hydera- 

 bad : — 



" To this I had been invited, thanks to the kind of- 

 fices of Colonel Chapman, the military Secretary of the 

 Commander-in-Chief (General Stewart), whose acquaint- 

 ance I made on the way from Brindisi to Bombay, who 

 not only made out my itinerary but also gave me letters 

 to all his friends and acquaintances, and I was thus 

 passed on from one delightful bungalow to another un- 

 til I returned to Bombay. At Hyderabad I spent three 

 days during the festivities of the installation, living in 

 part in camp with other invited guests, having a huge 

 tent, an attendant of my own, a bed-room and sitting- 

 room and tent for a bath-room, and all the guests din- 

 ing together in a huge tent and meeting after dinner 



