*1
H.M.S. "Erebus."
Cape of Good Hope. Jul Ap[ri]l 18. [1843] (recd. July 14. 1843)
My dear Aunt Mary,*2
I am very much obliged by the many nice letters with which you have favored your ungracious nephew & I should really enjoy to sit down & write you a good answer to this kindness, but I send so much home that what I say cannot be news to you. Again, there are many persons who correspond with me, to whom I do not feel half the regard that I have for you, but who would not look so leniently on my omitting to answer their letters. All this is very selfish, you will say, & so it is; but what am I to do?
You remind me of the times when we used to sit in the study (where probably you now are & where this note may reach you some 2 months hence) reading Tacitus:*3 at least you & my Grandfather reading it & I looking on. Alas! I never had much taste for Latin & Greek, or any of the dead languages; & (except that I should have the satisfaction of knowing that my father's money was not so much thrown away,) I greatly doubt if my having been a good scholar would give me now so much pleasure as you might imagine. What I do really regret is the little attention I paid to Ancient & especially to Modern History. If half the time spent on the Classics had been devoted to those subjects, the knowledge of them would prove a far more agreable[sic] companion than Horace, Virgil or even Homer. Do not think I underrate those attainments,

which alone make a man the perfect gentleman; but I had no taste for them, though ample time & opportunity for all. As it is, I sometimes attempt to rub them up, but I enjoy nothing so much as Hume & Smollett*4 (continuation of Hume's History of England). This mainly arises from those writers' bringing up associations, connected with different parts of my native land, & of scenes, though perhaps only scampered through via Mail Coach, which my memory, very retentive of localities, enables me to revisit, along with the heroes of my Author. A love of Poetry is also a sad deficiency in me, for you cannot suppose that I should learn to appreciate it, by being crammed with stanzas of Marmion*5, not amid Castles & Groves, but in a school of a 100 boys. Crabbe's*6 poems are my favorites (laugh at me if you will), because I can go with him everyth where. As for Thomson, "void of rhyme as well as reason," he is quite too lackadaisical for me. To the Southward, in bad weather, I used to spend a great deal of time in reading, chiefly books upon scientific subjects, which are of most importance to me, now that I have to work for my bread.
I do not think that I ever told you of Sir John Franklin's*7 having asked for you & Aunt Harriette[sic]. He is, in all respects, a good man, & an ornament to his profession as a Christian & a Sailor: I know no one in this service who comes near him, except it be Capt[ai]n Parry*8 & D[octo]r Richardson.*9
Mr. MacLeay*10 of Sydney, also enquired about you & all: he has a remarkably strong memory, as has Mrs. MacLeay. I did not

recollect to speak of this when writing to my grandmother, but their questions were very gracious about her, I spent much time with them &, with their only son & daughter, who are now at home, & so pleasantly that even now I cannot tell how the hours flew so swiftly. I must have prated a great deal, for I know we were it a talking the whole while, during my visit, about things present & especially things past. Oldest Mrs. McLeary was still alive, at 102, in the North of Scotland. (She is dead now.) In drawing I do not improve much, though I have made several sketches of the places we have visited. There is but one tolerable Artist in the Expedition, Mr. DavisX of the "Terror." Dayman, (Aunt Ellen's acquaintance) who was the best, is left behind in Van Diemen's Land [Tasmania] (at the Observatory). Your pencil would be invaluable here, though you would have grown heartily tired of Bergs & Ice. Captain Ross*12 used often to make me sketch coastlines of hills & valleys of snow, which is most miserable work. Could I have colored[,] nothing would be so grand as a view of the scenes we have visited, if in fine weather; but let the weather be what it will, an Iceberg is always a treacherous thing at the best. Now my dear Aunt, I should like to say more, but have nothing worth communicating. You will therefore let me conclude with the assurance that I am you very affectionate nephew | J. D. Hooker
To Miss Turner ) Yarmouth )
X Mr. Davis made the drawing of the storm which assailed the Ships around the Icebergs.