400 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxvi 



enabled me to fulfil all the engagements I had made before 

 starting ; and Donnelly had given me to understand that " My 

 Lords " would not trouble their heads about my stretching my 

 official leave. Nevertheless I was very glad to find the official 

 extension (which was the effect of my wife's and your and 

 Bence Jones's friendly conspiracy) awaiting me at Cairo. A 

 rapid journey home via Brindisi might have rattled my brains 

 back into the colloid state in which they were when I left Eng- 

 land. Looking back through the past six months I begin to see 

 that I have had a narrow escape from a bad break-down, and I 

 am full of good resolutions. 



As the first-fruit of these you see that I have given up the 

 school-board, and I mean to keep clear of all that semi-political 

 work hereafter. I see that Sandon (whom I met at Alexandria) 

 and Miller have followed my example, and that Lord Lawrence 

 is likely to go. What a skedaddle ! 



It seems very hard to escape, however. Since my arrival 

 here, on taking up the Times I saw a paragraph about the Lord 

 Rectorship of St. Andrews. After enumerating a lot of candi- 

 dates for that honour, the paragraph concluded, " But we under- 

 stand that at present Professor Huxley has the best chance." 

 It is really too bad if anyone has been making use of my name 

 without my permission. But I don't know what to do about 

 it. I had half a mind to write to Tulloch to tell him that I 

 can't and won't take any such office, but I should look rather 

 foolish if he replied that it was a mere newspaper report, and 

 that nobody intended to put me up. 



Egypt interested me profoundly, but I must reserve the tale 

 of all I did and saw there for word of mouth. From Alexandria 

 I went to Messina, and thence made an excursion along the 

 lovely Sicilian coast to Catania and Etna. The old giant was 

 half covered with snow, and this fact, which would have tempted 

 you to go to the top, stopped me. But I went to the Val del 

 Bove, whence all the great lava streams have flowed for the 

 last two centuries, and feasted my eyes with its rugged grandeur. 

 From Messina I came on here, and had the great good fortune 

 to find Vesuvius in eruption. Before this fact the vision of 

 good Bence Jones forbidding much exertion vanished into thin 

 air, and on Thursday up I went in company with Ray Lankester 

 and my friend Dohrn's father, Dohrn himself being unluckily 

 away. We had a glorious day, and did not descend till late at 

 night. The great crater was not very active, and contented 

 itself with throwing out great clouds of steam and volleys of 



