' THE HIMALAYAN JOUENALS ' PUBLISHED 363 
As a last touch, he was out of his old house and not yet in his 
new one, where the workmen were in possession. Much of this 
labour he had foreseen, but he had not foreseen its cumulative 
effect. Accordingly (August 8, 1859) : 
I write till my fingers ache, tramp the Gardens and grounds 
till I am foot-sore, and go to bed at night to ruminate on the 
little I have done in the day. My wife presses me to go and 
join you, but with such a prospect before me I feel it would be 
folly or something worse, and the ' Genera,' which I am 
anxious to begin as soon as the V.D.L. Flora is off hands, 
would then be indefinitely postponed. 
Staying alone all the summer at his father's house, for he 
had sent his wife and children to the Henslows', he reluctantly 
gave up the holiday he had planned to take with Bentham. 
Meantime the ' Himalayan Journals ; or, Notes of a 
Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the 
Khasia Mountains, &c.,' were published in 1854. These two 
volumes, containing together more than 900 pages of incident 
and adventure, as well as picturesque description and the 
most varied scientific notes, were ' dedicated to Charles Darwin 
by his affectionate friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker.' 
The first edition met with instant success. A second; 
slightly abridged, followed in the next year with less good 
fortune. In 1891 a one volume edition was brought out in 
the Minerva Library, and was reissued in 1905. 
The Journals ensured their author the highest reputation 
as a scientific traveller. The permanent results drawn from 
observations in so many branches of science have already 
been noted. His own view of it appears from a letter of thanks 
to Berkeley. 
I am greatly dehghted with your hearty praise of my 
book. I did really take so much pains with it, and have for 
so many years looked forward to the publication of such a 
book, that I keenly appreciate the favourable notice taken of 
it by my friends and the pubhc. To write a book of the 
sort, after travels of the sort, has been the pole-star of my 
fife from earliest childhood, and now that it is really all over 
