Colonial Government of Auckland. 1 Amid the joyful recollections 
of those happy days, I can not pass over in silence the agreeable 
surprise made me by the inhabitants of Nelson by a most flat- 
tering address,' 2 presented to me at the conclusion of my lecture, 
and accompanied by a beautiful and significant present of valuable 
specimens of the gold-fields of Nelson, which were enclosed in a box 
ingeniously composed of various kinds of New Zealand fancy woods. 
On the 2 l! of October I embarked on board the steamer “Prince 
Alfred” bound for Sydney. Feeling at heart as though I parted 
from my native home, I waved a last farewell to my numerous 
friends assembled on shore, and bade adieu to the coast of New 
Zealand. A perfect stranger, 1 had met with a truly hospitable 
welcome and reception at the hands of the brave and generous 
colonists on those distant shores. As a member of a Govern- 
ment Expedition, promoted by a magnanimous prince of an Im- 
perial house for the noble ends of science, 1 was zealously supported 
in New Zealand by the representatives of a friendly Government. 
As a naturalist, I was most disinterestedly aided by men, who 
may justly be proud of belonging to a nation, whose banners wave 
in every quarter of the globe ; a nation , that with equal energy 
pursues both the practical interests of life and the nobler ends of 
science and civilization. I was deeply impressed by the fact that 
the man of science, of whatever nation or country, is at home 
wherever he labours; and that the field of his researches, even 
though it were the remotest end of the earth , will become to him 
a second home. 
After a short visit to the gold-fields of the Colony Victoria, 
1 proceeded on board the steamer “Benares” via Mauritius and 
Aden to Suez, and on the 9 th of January 1860 arrived in Triest, 
where , for the first time after an absence of almost three years I 
hailed again my native soil. 
1 “Lecture on the Geology of the Province of Nelson” appeared first in (he 
“Colonist” and “New Zealand Examiner” of October 1859, then in the “New Zealand 
Government Gazette” No. 39 of December 6. 1859, and in other New Zealand papers. 
2 See Appendix to Ch. I. 
