32 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, m 



ing of firearms — as we did on the south coast of New Guinea 

 — and of making acquaintance with a variety of interesting 

 savage and semi-civilised people. But, apart from experience of 

 this kind and the opportunities offered for scientific work, to me, 

 personally, the cruise was extremely valuable. It was good for 

 me to live under sharp discipline; to be down on the realities 

 of existence by living on bare necessaries : to find how extremely 

 well worth living life seemed to be when one woke up from a 

 night's rest on a soft plank, with the sky for canopy, and cocoa 

 and weevilly biscuit the sole prospect for breakfast; and, more 

 especially, to learn to work for the sake of what I got for myself 

 out of it, even if it all went to the bottom and I along with it. 

 My brother officers were as good fellows as sailors ought to be 

 and generally are, but, naturally, they neither knew nor cared 

 anything about my pursuits, nor understood why I should be so 

 zealous in pursuit of the objects which my friends, the middies, 

 christened " Buffons," after the title conspictious on a volume 

 of the Suites a Buffon, which stood on my shelf in the chart- 

 room. 



On the whole, life among the company of officers was 

 satisfactory enough.* Huxley's immediate superior, John 

 Thompson, was a man of sterHng worth ; and Captain Stan- 

 ley was an excellent commander, and sympathetic withal. 

 Among Huxley's messmates there was only one, the ship's 

 clerk, who ever made himself actively disagreeable, and a 

 quarrel with him only served to bring into relief the young 

 surgeon's integrity and directness of action. After some 

 dispute, in which he had been worsted, this gentleman 

 sought to avenge himself by dropping mysterious hints as 

 to Huxley's conduct before joining the ship. He had been 

 treasurer of his mess; there had been trouble about the 

 accounts, and a scandal had barely been averted. This was 

 not long in coming to Huxley's ears. Furiously indignant 

 as he was, he did not lose his self-control; but promptly 



* The Assistant-Surgeon messed in tie gun-room with the middies. 

 A man in the midst of a lot of boys, with hardly any grown-up com- 

 panions, often has a rather unenviable position ; but, says Captain 

 Heath, who was one of these middies, Huxley's constant good spirits 

 and fun, when he was not absorbed in his work, his freedom from any 

 assumption of superiority over them, made the boys his good comrades 

 and allies. 



