On our second and
present visit, however, which the Cape York people immediately
announced by smoke signals to their friends, she was successful
in persuading some of her more immediate friends to bring her
across to the mainland within a short distance of where the
vessels lay. The blacks were credulous enough to believe that as
she had been so long with them and had been so well treated, she
did not intend to leave them,--only 'she felt a strong desire to
see the white people once more and shake hands with them': adding
that she would be certain to purchase some axes, knives, tobacco,
and other much-prized articles."
Although the external adventures of the _Rattlesnake_ party were less
varied and exciting than might have been expected in a voyage of four
years in the tropic seas and among barbarian tribes, the mental
adventures through which Huxley passed in the time must have been of
the most surprising kind. It was a four-years' course in the great
university of nature, and when he had finished it he was no longer a
mere student, capricious and unsettled in his mental tastes and
inclinations, but had set his face steadily towards his future
life-work.
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