I wish I could show you the baskets full of flowers which Martha and Mary bring to me from the mountains. They are wonderfully beautiful; it is one of my greatest amusements putting them in water. I quite regret when they cannot go for them. The orchises and the gladioles are the chief flowers now, but such a variety and such colours! You see we have our quiet pleasures. I often think of more than "60 years ago," when I used to scramble over the Bin at Burntisland after our tods-tails and leddies-fingers, but I fear there is hardly a wild spot existing now in the lowlands of Scotland.... God bless you, my dearest Woronzow. FROM MRS. SOMERVILLE TO W. GREIG, ESQ. SPEZIA, _27th Sept., 1865_. MY DEAREST WORONZOW, I fear Agnes and you must have thought your old mother had gone mad when you read M.'s letter. In my sober senses, however, though sufficiently excited to give me strength for the time, I went over every part of the _Resistance_,[15] and examined everything in detail except the _stokehole_! I was not even hoisted on board, but mounted the companion-ladder bravely. It was a glorious sight, the perfection of structure in every part astonished me. A ship like that is the triumph of human talent and of British talent, for all confess our superiority in this respect to every other nation, and I am happy to see that no jealousy has arisen from the meeting of the French and English fleets. I was proud that our "young admiral"[16] had the command of so fine a vessel.... I also spent a most agreeable day on board the _Victoria_, three-decker, and saw every part of the three decks, which are very different from what they were in my father's time; everything on a much larger scale, more elegant and convenient. But the greatest change is in the men; I never saw a finer set, so gentlemanly-looking and well-behaved; almost all can read and write, and they have an excellent library and reading-room in all the ships. No sooner was the fleet gone than the Italian Society of Natural History held their annual meeting here, Capellini[17] being president in the absence (in Borneo) of Giacomo Doria. There were altogether seventy members, Italian, French, and German. I was chosen an Associate by acclamation, and had to write a few lines of thanks. The weather was beautiful and the whole party dined every day on the terrace below our windows, which was very amusing to Miss Campbell and your sisters, who distinctly heard the speeches. I was invited to dinner and the wife of the celebrated Professor Vogt was asked to meet me; I declined dining, as it lasted so long that I should have been too tired, but I went down to the dessert. Capellini came for me, and all rose as I came in, and every attention was shown me, my health was drank, &c. &c.