362 THE EETURN FROM INDIA 
In I\Iay 1858 he complains to Harvey of being appallingly 
behindhand with his work, and in June adds : 
I am working now extremely hard at these Indian collec- 
tions, of which I am utterly sick. I expect another year will 
see them all arranged and incorporated in Herb. — and then 
comes describing. 
In August, three weeks' enforced absence from the work had 
been such a gnawing anxiety that he could not think of pro- 
longing it, since, there being no means of warming the distri- 
buting room, it was imperative to make an end before winter, 
lest it should drag on and cumber all the next year. By 
mid- November he came to the end of all he could do that 
year, namely 160,000 ticketed species. ' As for myself,' he 
tells Bentham, * I am in statu quo, but considerably thinner, 
I am told.' 
This was one heavy item. Then there was the Tasmanim 
Flora. ' I find it tremendous work,' and again (Aug. 8, 1859), 
this luckless Essay of mine has broken my back. I had no 
idea of the mass of material I had accumulated for it, or the 
time it would take to digest it ; it is not half printed, and if 
I leave it in the present state for 2 months, it will take me 
many days to begin again, if indeed I ever could work 
myself up to completing it after such a break. I am daily 
working every spare moment at it, and have still several 
sheets to print and some to rewrite from the rough. 
Then he was planning out the Genera Plantarum with 
Bentham, ' which I am deeply pondering.' His father's 
illness and prolonged absence in the summer of 1859 threw 
on his shoulders an accumulation of correspondence and all 
the work in the Garden, with the added responsibilities of 
looking after the erection of the large new Conservatory. Yet 
when his father did return for a few days there was no relief, 
for 
he now likes to consult me about everything he does, so that 
when he was here I had literally more to do than when he 
was away ! 
