CHAPTER XIII 



1888 



It was not till June 23 that Huxley was patched up 

 sufficiently by the doctors for him to start for the Engadine. 

 His first stage was to Lugano ; the second by Menaggio 

 and Colico to Chiavenna; the third to the Maloja. The 

 summer visitors who saw him arrive so feeble that he could 

 scarcely walk a hundred yards on the level, murmured that 

 it was a shame to send out an old man to die there. Their 

 surprise was the greater when, after a couple of months, 

 they saw him walking his ten miles and going up two 

 thousand feet without difficulty. As far as his heart was 

 concerned, the experiment of sending him to the mountains 

 was perfectly justified. With returning strength he threw 

 himself once more into the pursuit of gentians, being es- 

 pecially interested in their distribution and hybridism, and 

 the possibility of natural hybrids explaining the apparent 

 connecting links between species. No doubt, too, he felt 

 some gratification in learning from his friend Mr. (now 

 Sir W.) Thiselton Dyer, that the results he had already 

 obtained in pursuing this hobby had been of real value : — 



Your important paper "On Alpine Gentians" (writes the 

 latter) has begun to attract the attention of botanists. It has 

 led Baillon, who is the most acute of the French people, to 

 make some observations of his own. 



At the Maloja he stayed twelve weeks, but it was not 

 until nearly two months had elapsed that he could write 

 of any decided improvement, although even then his an- 

 ticipations for the future were of the gloomiest. The 

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