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242   Life and Letters of Francis Gatton

" Mr G. came yesterday fresh from the Derby ! I felt so pleased to have such a sportive relation. It was a splendid day at Epsom, and he -wasi very happy wandering among the gypsies etc. He tells such rich stories and very neatly. - He

has been to spirit-rappings' and had another conversation in Damara with a deceased chief of that tribe. Is not that wonderful, for Mr Galton is the only man in Europe who knows Damara. The chief promised to go abroad with him, which is a pleasant

look-out for Loui ! "

The marriage of Francis Galton and Louisa Butler took place on August 1, and was followed by a tour in Switzerland and Italy, the winter being spent partly in Florence and partly in Rome. The return to England in March, 1854, was largely followed by visits, and on August 6 the Galtons again left for an extended tour in France. Hardly till the summer of 1855 did Galton settle down to steady research, but from that year onwards there is scarcely a year which does not bring its definite piece of noteworthy research, and Galton's scientific production now becomes the story of his life. The extended continental tours continued throughout a long life, but they were holidays, and, however they extended his field of observation, they had no longer to do with scientific exploration. But what Galton had learnt in his African journeys, became the fund on which he drew for his Art of Travel, 1855, and for those lectures at Aldershot on the Arts of Campaigning (1855-6), by which he endeavoured to supply the "helplessness of our soldiers in the most elementary matters of camp-life," a helplessness the Crimean War was emphasising in the most potent and cruel of manners. These subjects will be dealt with in the following chapter.

I Francis Galton enters under the events of 1853-'1 spirit-rapping mania."


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