9 2 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



and clamp; bail showers, fogs, and rain in torrents. Table 

 Mountain perceptibly white for two days. The other moun- 

 tains are, and have been latterly, as " white as a sheet." These 

 are matters here to talk about — yea, grave subjects of discourse. 

 Well, let us enjoy the cool weather while it lasts, for " anon, anon," 

 we shall be grilling, I guess. 



July 17th. I dined on the 15th at Government House ; but 

 there being two dozen at dinner, I was delightfully insignificant. 

 In the previous half hour I talked small with the ladies, but 

 after. dinner found myself much better sorted with a botanical 

 artillery captain, who had been to Fernando Po, and who had 

 much that was pleasant to say on South African botany. We have 

 planned to spend my first idle day in an excursion to seek for 

 the charming Hyobanche sanguined, a plant I long to see, 

 and which he most rapturously describes. He met a field of 

 them the other day. No one has yet succeeded in raising it, as, 

 like all its tribe, it is a parasite. Since I wrote last I made 

 my maiden speech in council. That is, I stood up in a flutter, 

 my heart beating so loud I could almost hear it through 

 a double-breasted waistcoat, and so quick, it almost stopped 

 my breath. But I took courage, and got out " Sir," and so 

 forth. Fortunately the sitting was with closed doors, so the 

 public are not the wiser. I am just reading Sir Walter Scott's 

 life, and am sadly disappointed in the scantiness of the auto- 

 biographical fragment, but since I have got into Lockhart's 

 part 1 am better pleased. The most delightful part of such 

 lives to me is the incidents and characters that suggested the 

 fictitious ones, and the letters of himself and his correspondents. 

 I have not yet got hold of the " Pickwick Papers." 



August 4:th. Just a twelvemonth since I left home, and 

 does it seem long ? In part yea, in part no. There are so few 

 things to recollect the time by, that life glides away imper- 

 ceptibly. The week begins and ends. Then comes Sunday, 

 and, after a few times, again comes pay-day at the month's end. 

 A regular routine life like mine gets on quicker than one would 

 imagine. I never regretted the passage of time less. As 

 Moore says, " It seems but pastime to grow old." I say five 

 years hence I may get home. Six seems a better chance. 

 Ten. Surely I shall return ! What of Lady Flora ! Not much, 

 save that the Irideee are beginning to multiply as we approach 



