Parthia*1. July 8, /[18]77.
Dearest Hyacinth *2 This we hope will be our last day on board, though the fogs are so frequent and thick that we cannot be sure whether we shall land tonight or tomorrow morning. The passage has been a most comfortable one on the whole, averaging 300 miles a day, with no gale, but the motion of the waves and boat has so confined the passengers especially the ladies to the cabins, making them sea sick in short, that we have rarely had a dozen at table. The said motion makes writing illegible! -- The weather has uniformly been cool or cold, and I have spent most of my time on my back in my cabin reading, or pacing the deck. I was twice squeamish but never sick. Still the monotony of the voyage is dismal and we are terribly sick of it. I never was so much so of any voyage. This is because the motion of the screw is so unpleasant as contrasted with the rythmical[sic] beat of the engines of a paddle-wheel steamer to which I have been more accustomed. Amongst the passengers there are none of any interest; the best are 3 young tourists returning from their visit to the Old World. One is a Lowell, related to Mrs Gray*3; another is related to Mottley's*4 daughter who married Sir W.Harcourt M.P.*5, brother of our Nuneham friend. They are intelligent, gentlemanly and agreeable. I have read through Macaulay*6, Evelyn's Diary*7, Keyes' Lives of eminent Indians, some of Longfellow's*8 Poems and one volume of Lyell's first Journey in America.

I had hoped to write a good deal, but this scrawl may prove to you how almost painful it is even to scrawl. The Stracheys*9 are excellent companions both to me and to one another. They too have passed most of their time in reading on their backs, though I do not think they have slept so well as I have by night or day. Our Captain is a bright intelligent Scotchman whose culture and turn of mind came out the other day at dinner when he had an argument with some one on the effects of emotion and principle which his interlocutor had confounded, when he reminded him that the emotions were slaves of the sensations, but that principles were the offspring of the intellect! The Officers are quiet well conducted young men, the crew sober and respectable. The Doctor is an Army surgeon who had served in India, an Irishman with a good brogue and lots of Irish stories, which he tells capitally. The time has however hung dreadfully heavily and I shall not be disposed to take another trip Westwards across the Atlantic unless you persuade me.! 9 P.M. Here we are at last in Boston Harbour, a very unpicturesque place. We are told that Mr Mottley (brother of the Historian) and Professor Sargent*10 have been cruising about for us all day in a Government steamer to take us in and through the Custom House, but the Steamer not being sighted at 5[P.M.], they returned to Boston and will appear at 6 1/2 [6:30] tomorrow morning. So I must now pack up and be ready to be off the first thing and shall post this in town.

Goodbye my dear Hyacinth. Best love to those with you and at Kew and at Pendock. Ever your affectionate husband | Jos.D.Hooker.
11 A.M. All right at Cambridge and hearty welcome. We leave on Thursday for Colorado. Mr Smith*11 or Dyer *12 will please send corrected Copy of Fern list to Prof[essor] Sargent, Cambridge, Massachusetts.