1850 SECOND CRUISE OF THE RATTLESh\4KE 49 



To HIS Mother 

 (Announcing the probable time of his return). 



Sydney, Feb. 11, 1850. 



I cannot at all realise the idea of our return. We have been 

 leading such a semi-savage life for years past, such a wandering 

 nomadic existence, that any other seems in a manner unnatural 

 to me. Time was when I should have looked upon our return 

 with unmixed joy ; but so many new and strong ties have arisen 

 to unite me with Sydney, that now when the anchor is getting 

 up for England, I scarcely know whether to rejoice or to grieve. 

 You must not be angry, my dear Mother ; I have none the less 

 affection for you or any other of those whom I love in England 

 — only a very great deal for a certain little lassie whom I must 

 leave behind me without clearly seeing when we are to meet 

 again. You must remember the Scripture as my excuse, " A 

 man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his" (I 

 wish I could add) wife. Our long cruises are fine times for 

 reflection, and during the last I determined that we would be 

 terribly prudent and get married about 1870, or the Greek 

 Kalends, or, what is about the same thing, whenever I am 

 afflicted with the malheur de richesses. 



People talk about the satisfaction of an approving con- 

 science. Mine approves me intensely ; but I'll be hanged if I see 

 the satisfaction of it. I feel much more inclined to swear 

 " worse than our armies in Flanders." ... So far as my private 

 doings are concerned, I hear very satisfactory news of them. 

 I heard from an old messmate of mine at Haslar the other day 

 that Dr. MacWilliam, F.R.S., one of our deputy-inspectors, had 

 been talking about one of my papers, and gave him to under- 

 stand that it was to be printed. Furthermore, he is a great 

 advocate for the claims of assistant surgeons to ward-room 

 rank, and all that sort of stuff, and, I am told, quoted me as an 

 example ! Henceforward I look upon the learned doctor as a 

 man of sound sense and discrimination ! Without joking, how- 

 ever, I am glad to have come under his notice, as he may be of 

 essential use to me. I find myself getting horribly selfish, look- 

 ing at everything with regard to the influence it may have on 

 my grand objects. 



Further descriptions of the voyage are to be drawn from 

 an article in the Westminster Review for January 1854 



