[[1]]
Funchal Madeira
October 20th 1839
My dear Father
As there is an opportunity of sending letters tonight to Britain I hasten to inform you
of our safe arrival here. We anchored yesterday evening after a passage of 14 days
having passed the Lizard on the 7th & Torbay on the 6th. We were a long time
detained in the Channel & were very near putting into Torbay when a favourable
breeze sprang up. We however lost the Terror in a gale on the previous day & have
seen nothing of her since. A crank gun brig arrived here only an hour or two after we
did which says a good deal for the sailing facilities of our ship, for she had left
Plymouth on the 8th & we have lost about 12 hours by heaving to to sound every day
for the temperature of the deep sea water. As usual crossing the Bay of Biscay was
the worst part of the passage after leaving the Channel. I have not however
experienced the least sickness though the ship rolls dreadfully, her worst fault &
which all my shipmates complain of much is our berth being athwartships the
sensation of the head being down & the contents of the thorax & abdomen
gravitating towards the head at intervals of two or three minutes is most
disagreeable. I do not however complain as it is almost
[[2]] our only grievance. Our passage has been very monotonous very few birds
have been seen & though I have examined the sea water several times I have hardly
found any animalculae nor shall I till we come towards the tropics. I have kept a
regular journal whenever there is anything of the slightest importance to set down it
is written on sheets of this sized paper on one side only. The Natural History part I
copy out into my Admiralty journal which I must keep on board & deliver up on
reaching England giving my honor[sic] that I have kept no duplicate, this I intend to
evade by sending to you as a letter the original journal which contains everything I
can think of & more I fear than you will care to read, I reserve the Admiralty journal
till my arrival. The blank leaves I leave partly to add anything I think of before
sending it, but chiefly with the hope that you would add any observations of your own
as you may chance to think of them, so that, on my return if I should have done
anything worth publishing, by the references you may make, I may add to the
meagre mss [manuscript]. I shall further send home to you from time to time the
specimens of my own that I may have collected leaving it to Capt[ain] Ross *1 to do
what he thinks best with the Admiralty Coll[ection]. By this means I shall I hope
avoid any demand being made upon me for specimens I may have collected & which
the Admiralty set may not have, from the Admiralty collector refusing to take them
from me when I collect them. This was the case the other day when I collected
some crabs from a floating log. Mr McCormick*2 took some spec[imen]s for himself
but
[[3]] said I do not care to take any for the Admiralty. Now as I have made notes on
the spec[imen]s in my journal which may be curious they may apply to me for
specimens which were refused when I offered them. The Admiralty coll[ection] of
plants I make up myself but the animals etc which I collect I take to McCormick for
him to choose from before I keep any for myself. The shore leave is arranged thus,
as long as one Med[ical] Officer is on board either of the ships I may go ashore, not
else. So among four Med[ical] Officers, there will be plenty of opportunity. The
Terror has not arrived yet & as Mr McCormick is now ashore I am of course on board
till he returns when I intend to go & call on Mr Muir *3 & Mr Lowe *4 to ask information
about collecting anything very good before I collect at random.
On first nearing the Island of Madeira it reminded me most strongly of some of the
islands on the West of Argylshire[sic] only the volcanic rocks are much redder &
clothed here & there with low brushwood, the tops of the hills are often capped with
pines all along the coast are lots of vineyards the now bare poles of which look at a
distance like gigantic grapes. S[an]ta Cruz was the first town we saw a wretched
little Portuguese village. The ravines are quite like Scotch ones but more sparingly
wooded & the faces of the very steep ravines are most admirably like the views in
Webb & Berthelot *5 full of actual perpendicular lines which are dotted with trees.
Those views came to my mind the moment I saw the realities. The tops of the
M[oun]t[ain] are more subdivided into conical peaks than the Scotch hills & are
covered with grass. The Island disappointed me very much I expected to find it
clothed with large wood whereas there seems only a belt of wood
[[4]] now of the same rusty colour as the rocks on which they grow above the
reform[?] of vines which presents the appearance of a hillside cut up with angular
vineyards in miriads[?] each of which has a low small hut on it & here and there is a
large white gentleman[']s house. The climate is most splendid & the nights more
beautiful than anything I ever saw. Last night I walked the deck till very late the
moon was so bright that you could almost distinguish the towers[?] of Funchal, half a
mile off the peaks of the *6 island were most distinct, the smell of orange flowers from
shore was quite distinct & so was the sound of a military band beating a retreat
which came over the still water. During the day the sky is almost cloudless & the
water blue, tell Maria it is exactly the colour of her Lapis Lazuli ring & like nothing
else.
Oct[ober] 22nd. The packet sails today & I have barely time to add that I have been
ashore & most hospitably received by Mr Muir & Dr Lippold *7 who is now waiting to
take me on excursion. The Terror has not come in yet. We shall be here for some
days before we sail. I shall send you an acc[ou]nt of my excursions. Best love to all.
J D Hooker [signature]
*8 I
have no time to correct my letter. Today I saw Mr Reilly, Mr Lowe & Dr Renton
on our way up the hills. Dr Lippold is delight <ed at my>*9 coming[?]
ENDNOTES
1. Captain Sir James Clark Ross (1800--1862). British naval officer and explorer
known for his exploration of the polar regions. Captain of the Antarctica expedition of
1839--1843, comprising the vessels HMS 'Erebus' and 'Terror'. Joseph Dalton
Hooker was the expedition's assistant surgeon on the 'Erebus'.
2. Robert McCormick (1800--1890). Ship Surgeon on HMS 'Erebus'.
3. Mr Muir. Glasgow Merchant and friend of J D Hooker's grandfather.
4. Richard Thomas Lowe (1802--1874). British Scientist and Clergyman.
5. Webb & Berthelot (1835), Histoire naturelle des îles Canaries.
6. The address of the recipient appears here as the letter would originally have been
folded in such a way that it formed its own 'envelope'. The address reads Sir Wm. J.
Hooker | Woodside Crescent | Glasgow | N[orth].B[ritain].
7. Dr J F Lippold, sent to Madeira to collect plants and seeds for Kew and the Duke
of Bedford.
8. This paragraph written on the address panel of the folded letter.
9. Text missing due to damage where the letter was sealed with wax and later
opened.
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