At Kew he was surrounded with friends, renewing the close intimacy with his old and lifelong friend Sir Joseph Hooker; was near his friends at the Deanery at St. Paul’s and at Broom House; and he rested now and then with a day’s sight-seeing. The days passed all too quickly until the time came for breaking up for the return to America. There was a short stay at Oxford, with Sir Henry Acland, most interesting days, and again at Manchester at Professor and Mrs. Williamson’s hospitable home, and then the voyage to America, when he landed early in November. TO MESSRS. CANBY AND REDFIELD. KEW, July 15, 1881. MY DEAR OLD FRIENDS, CANBY AND REDFIELD,--How very long it is since you have heard, at least directly, from your Old World wanderers! How long and from whence, is more than I can tell. I use now an enforced half hour before an engagement, and when it is, would you believe it for England? too hot to go across the Green to use the half hour at the herbarium, where I have sweltered all the morning, regular Philadelphia heat, and this is the third day of this the second heated term. I wrote you from Italy, I think. ... It is hopeless now to try to give any narration of our doings. The flavor would have all evaporated in the attempt to recall and review the past spring. I think you know our routes, from Paris in March to Turin, to Genoa, Pisa, Rome, Naples, and the country around, Amalfi and Pæstum our most southern points; then Rome again and a twelve days’ stay, then a run to Orvieto and Cortona on the route to Florence, a visit to Siena from Florence, a detour from Bologna to Ravenna, most old-world of towns, thence to Venice, a week only. And as we left it, the Hookers, whose furlough was running out, dropped us at Padua, whence, passing Verona, where we had been before, we had a day at Brescia, thence to Milan, Como and up the lake, and over to Lugano, and back to Milan. Thence to Arona at foot of Lake Maggiore, and a drive all the way up to Domo d’Ossola, and then diligence over the Simplon pass and through the snow, and down to Brieg, and on to Martigny to sleep, and then on to Geneva, where we passed a delicious week, with De Candolle and other friends to enjoy, and a little botany to attend to in the herbarium. And then in one day we went to Paris, and stayed three weeks, while Mrs. Gray did her feminine matters, and I a deal of botany work, and both a little sight-seeing. Thence, sending our luggage before to London, we swung off for Soissons and the old castle of Coucy, and Reims, and Trèves, and down the Moselle to Coblentz, and the Rhine (that is, by rail) to Cologne, to enjoy the finished cathedral; thence to Aix la Chapelle, to Bruxelles, and then, with a fine day and smooth water, over to England; and here at Kew we have been settled ever since, engaging in a deal of botanical work and a deal of society in a most agreeable way, and a little (thus far only a little) sight-seeing. As we come towards the