i872 LETTER TO TYNDALL ,gg 



laziness of dahabieh life. A month of that has completely set 

 me up. I am as well as ever; and though very grateful to Old 

 Nile for all that he has done for me — not least for a whole uni- 

 verse of new thoughts and pictures of life — I begin to feel 

 strongly 



' the need of a world of men for me.' 



But I am not going to overwork myself again. Pray make my 

 kindest remembrances to Mrs. Arnold, and believe me, always 

 yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



Leaving Assouan on March 3, and Cairo on the i8th, 

 he returned by way of Messina to Naples, taking a day at 

 Catania to look at Etna. At Naples he found his friend 

 Dohrn was absent, and his place as host was filled by his 

 father. Vesuvius was ascended, Pozzuoli and Pompeii vis- 

 ited, and two days spent in Rome. 



Hotel de Grande Bretagne, Naples, 

 March 31, 1872. 



My dear Tyndall — Your very welcome letter did not reach 

 me until the i8th of March, when I returned to Cairo from my 

 expedition to Assouan. Like Johnny Gilpin, I " little thought, 

 when I set out, of running such a rig " ; but while at Cairo I 

 fell in with Ossory of the Athenaeum, and a very pleasant fellow, 

 Charles Ellis, who had taken a dahabieh, and were about to 

 start up the Nile. They invited me to take possession of a 

 vacant third cabin, and I accepted their hospitality, with the 

 intention of going as far as Thebes and returning on my own 

 hook. But when we got to Thebes I found there was no getting 

 away again without much more exposure and fatigue than I 

 felt justified in facing just then, and as my friends showed no 

 disposition to be rid of me, I stuck to the boat, and only left 

 them on the return voyage at Rodu, which is the terminus of 

 the railway, about 150 miles from Cairo. 



We had an unusually quick journey, as I was little more 

 than a month away from Cairo, and as my companions made 

 themselves very agreeable, it was very pleasant. I was not 

 particularly well at first, but by degrees the utter rest of this 

 " always afternoon " sort of life did its work, and I am as well 

 and vigorous now as ever I was in my life. 



I should have been home within a fortnight of the time I 

 had originally fixed. This would have been ample time to have 



