56 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, iv 



we ingeniously coloured ours white, and were astonished to 

 see that we were really of that (to them) disgusting tint all 

 over." 



On May 2, 1850, the Rattlesnake sailed for the last time 

 out of Sydney harbour, bound for England by way of the 

 Horn. In spite of his cheerful anticipations, 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 communication being the 

 slow agency of the post, beset with endless possibilities of 

 misunderstanding when it brought belated answers to ques- 

 tions already months old and out of date in the changed 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 im- 

 perceptibly growing estranged from one another under the 

 influences of such utterly dififerent surroundings. 



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. 



He utilized a week's stay here characteristically enough 

 in an expedition to Waimate, the chief missionary station 

 and the school of the native institutions (a sort of Normal 

 School for native teachers), in order to judge of his own 

 inspection what missionary life was like. 



I have been greatly surprised in these good people (he 

 writes). I had expected a good deal of straight-hairedness (if 

 you understand the phrase) and methodistical puritanism, but 

 I find it quite otherwise. Both Mr. and Mrs. Burrows seem 



