I should have written to you at Stresa, but I had mislaid your postcard, and it did not turn up till too late. We made up our minds after all that we would as soon not go down to the Lakes--where the ground would be drying up after the inundations--so we went the other way over the Julier to Tiefenkasten, and from T. to Ragatz, where we stayed a week. Ragatz was hot and steamy at first--cold and steamy afterwards--but earlier in the season, I should think, it would be pleasant. Last Monday we migrated here, and have had the vilest weather until to-day. All yesterday it rained cats and dogs. To-day we are off to Neuhausen (Schweitzerhof) to have a look at the Rhine falls. If it is pleasant we may stop there a few days. Then we go to Stuttgart, on our way to Nuremberg, which neither of us have seen. We shall be at the "Bavarian Hotel," and a letter will catch us there, if you have anything to say, I daresay up to the middle of the month. After that Frankfort, and then home. We do not find long railway journeys very good for either of us, and I am trying to keep within six hours at a stretch. I am not so vigorous as I was at Maloja, but still infinitely better than when I left England. I hope the mosquitoes left something of you in Venice. When I was there in October there were none! My wife joins with me in love to Mrs. Foster and yourself. Ever yours very faithfully, T.H. Huxley. [Some friendly chaff in Sir M. Foster's reply to the latter contains at least a real indication of the way in which Huxley became the centre of the little society at the Maloja:--] You may reflect that you have done the English tourists a good service this summer. At most table d'hotes in the Lakes I overheard people talking about the joys of Maloja, and giving themselves great airs on account of their intimacy with "Professor Huxley"!! [But indeed he made several friends here, notably one in an unexpected quarter. This was Father Steffens, Professor of Palaeography in Freiburg University, resident Catholic priest at Maloja in the summer, with whom he had many discussions, and whose real knowledge of the critical questions confronting Christian theology he used to contrast with the frequent ignorance and occasional rudeness of the English representatives of that science who came to the hotel. A letter to Mr. Spencer from Ragatz shows him on his return journey:--] In fact, so long as I was taking rather sharp exercise in sunshine I felt quite well, and I could walk as well as any time these ten years. It needed damp cold weather to remind me that my pumping apparatus was not to be depended upon under unfavourable conditions. Four thousand feet descent has impressed that fact still more forcibly upon me, and I am quite at sea as to what it will be best to do when we return. Quite certainly, however, we shall not go to Bournemouth. I like the place, but the air is too soft and moist for either of us.