AID FEOM EOSS 69 
of the tables under the stern windows is mine wholly ; also 
a drawer for my microscope, a locker for my papers, etc. 
To me he is most kind and attentive, — forestalHng my 
wishes in many respects. One day he finds a * box that 
will do nicely for Hooker,' then a seat at his cabin table, 
and a place always clear for me to sit down, when tired 
of standing at the drawing-table. Two towing nets are 
constantly overboard for sea animals. . . . Almost every 
day I draw, sometimes all day long and till two and three in 
the morning, the Captain directing me ; he sits on one side 
of the table, writing and figuring at night, and I on the 
other, drawing. Every now and then he breaks off and 
comes to my side, to see what I am after. . . . 
I have now drawings of nearly 100 Marine Crustacea 
and Mollusca, almost all microscopic ; some of them are 
very badly done, but I think that practice is improving 
me, and as I go on, I hope that some will be useful on my 
return. Were it not for drawing, my sea hfe would not be 
half so pleasant to me as it is. In the Cabin, with every 
comfort around me, I can imagine myself at home. Other 
duties are given me to do ; indeed, on finding how idle I 
was to be I asked the Captain if I could not in any way be 
useful to him, when he gave me the Hygrometer to take 
four times a day, at 9, 12, 3, and 9 ; and for two days in the 
week at 3 a.m., after the registering there is to draw out 
tables for different Meteorological purposes. The Captain 
has a compound microscope exactly like your large one, 
which I use whenever I require it, indeed he has made every- 
thing in his cabin my own. He has expressed himself much 
pleased with my Botanical collections, from which I judge 
that he never saw a really good collection, for I never look 
back upon a day in which I should not have done more 
than has been done, though at the time I hardly well knew 
how to carry what I had got. ... It would have amused 
you to have come into the cabin and seen the Captain and 
myself with our sleeves tucked up picking seaweed roots, 
and depositing the treasures to be drawn, in salt water, in 
basins, quietly popping the others into spirits. Some of 
the seaweeds he lays out for himself, often sitting at one 
end of the table laying them out with infinite pains, whilst 
I am drawing at the other end till 12 and 1 in the morning, 
vol.. I F 
