HOLIDAY TEAVEL 433 
variant to stay * two or three quiet weeks at some cheap, out 
of the way place (Tyrol or Pyrenees) and work up some of my 
florating materials, and afterwards go on to Sardinia or not.' 
My pleasure [he writes to Harvey, July '20, 1858] would 
be to go to only 2 or 3 places and spend a week at least at 
each — as one week at the Distel-Alp or elsewhere in Saas 
valley — one in valley of Ansasca, a day off, and one some- 
where else, hard by, doing some work at each and enjoying 
some very moderate walks at each. I have no love of climb- 
ing any more, or of cleaving glaciers, but I should like 
wandering for an hour or two in a day about such places 
out of the way of tourists or tripping excursionists. 
But alternative plans had to be made nearer home, for 
Mrs. Hooker could not go far away from Bath, where her 
aunt, Miss Jenyns, was lying seriously ill. 
Thus a few days later : 
We proposed the Cornish tour because my wife would be 
as near Bath there as here. I am charmed with your Kilkee 
plans, not so Mrs. Jones who has an aversion to the sea, no 
taste for that seanery and besides Flea rhymes with Kilkee. 
The great objection is however that it is as far from Bath 
as Switzerland. There is also the Hewmeedity of W. Ireland, 
and 16 days' wind and rain out of a fortnight, plus colds 
and neuralgia, is no joke on a holiday tour. 
* But whatever be decided,' he adds, ' I am hke you, I 
bargain for the sea or the snow — all else is dull, flat, tame, 
stale and unprofitable.' 
So again botanising is a leading attraction in the unf uliilled 
hoHday plan for 1859, and he declares to Harvey : 
I would ten times rather go to Cadiz than to top of Mt. 
Kosa for a month ; specially as there is something to be got 
and much to be seen in Spain, and especially if the trip 
brought in the contrasted regions of the Atlantic and Medi- 
terranean coasts, followed by the crossing of the Pyrenean 
pass to the Biscayan coast, so as to sesure comparative 
results beyond the mere numbers of species. 
