PLANS, SEKIOUS AND OTHER 163 
am, and see my way clearly before me till we return, after 
which no foresight can tell what will become of me. I can 
always fall back on the service as a livelihood. I shall 
never regret having joined this expedition. We must, along 
with Captain Ross, fail completely so as never to try again, 
— or succeed. No future Botanist will probably ever visit 
the countries whither I am going, and that is a great 
attraction. 
For a time, however, in 1841, his plans were sorely shaken 
by the barrenness of the first Antarctic cruise and the shortness 
of the stay in Tasmania, which seemed fatal to his project of 
writing a Flora of the island. The rest of the cruise threatened 
to waste two good years of a botanist's time. At this juncture 
his Tasmanian friends conceived the plan that he should be 
invalided and left in Tasmania, where he could continue his 
botanical work. His health had suffered, in sober fact, from 
brooding over his brother's death and the other bad news from 
home. His friend Ronald Gunn, a botanist himself and 
officially private secretary to Sir John Franklin, suggested, 
in the spirit of Midshipman Easy, that he should work up a 
cough and hoarseness, symptoms of impending consumption, 
for the benefit of that keen-eyed disciplinarian, Captain Ross. 
He pointed out the obvious drawbacks to goipg so far as to 
quit the service, and the burden it would be on his father if 
Hooker could not live on his half pay while publishing his 
collections ; but he was ready and able to help him in fifty 
ways in taking this short cut to botanical fame. 
Happily the plan was dropped on reflection ; the considera- 
tions contra were very strong, and there was the further chance 
that as he recovered his scientific holiday might be cut short 
by an order to join some other vessel. Moreover, Sir William's 
next letter urged him not to leave the service till he was fairly 
home and could see at least what could be done about publish- 
ing the collections, and though this only reached him later, it 
confirmed his new resolutions to go on with the expedition 
which he could not honourably leave. His gleanings in less 
abundant fields were richer in scientific results than the harvest 
he looked for as a collector. 
