So sorry we did not come here instead of stopping at Ragatz.  The falls are really fine, and the surrounding country a wide tableland, with the great snowy peaks of the Oberland on the horizon.  Last evening we had a brilliant sunset, and the mountains were lighted up with the most delicate rosy blush you can imagine.

To-day it rains cats and dogs again.  You will have seen in the papers that the Rhine and the Aar and the Rhone and the Arve are all in flood.  There is more water here in the falls than there has been these ten years.  However, we have got to go, as the hotel shuts up to-morrow, and there seems a good chance of reaching Stuttgart without water in the carriage.

Long railway journeys do not seem to suit either of us, and we have fixed the maximum at six hours.  I expect we shall be home some time in the third week of this month.

Love to Hal and anybody else who may be at home.

Ever your Pater.

4 Marlborough Place, October 20, 1888.

My dear Foster,

We got back on Thursday, and had a very good passage, and took it easy by staying the night at Dover.  The “Lord Warden” gave us the worst dinner we have had for four months, at double the price of the good dinners.  I wonder why we cannot manage these things better in England.

We are both very glad to be at home again, and trust we may be allowed to enjoy our own house for a while.  But, oh dear, the air is not Malojal! not even at Hempstead, whither I walked yesterday, and the pump labours accordingly.

I found the first part of the fifth edition of the Text-book among the two or three hundredweight of letters and books which had accumulated during four months.  Gratulire!

By the way, South Kensington has sent me some inquiry about Examinations, which I treat with contempt, as doubtless you have a duplicate.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[On October 25 he announces his return to Sir Joseph Hooker, and laments his loss of vigour at the sea-level:—­]

Hames won’t let me stay here in November, and I think we shall go to Brighton.  Unless on the flat of my back, in bed, I shall not have been at home a month all this year.

I have been utterly idle.  There was a lovely case of hybridism, Gentiana lutea and G. punctata, in a little island in the lake of Sils; but I fell ill and was confined to bed just after I found it out.  It would be very interesting if somebody would work out Distribution five miles round the Maloja as a centre.  There are the most curious local differences.

You asked me to send you a copy of my obituary of Darwin.  So I put one herewith, though no doubt you have seen it in the “Proceedings of the Royal Society.”

I should like to know what you think of 17 to 27.  If ever I am able to do anything again I will enlarge on these heads.

[In these pages of the Obituary Notice ("Proceedings of the Royal Society” 44 Number 269) he endeavours:—­]