Oddly enough, I cannot
remember how high I stood, and my memory fluctuates between the
fifth, tenth, or twelfth, name on the list. (Tenth in the list
of January 1831.)
Public lectures on several branches were given in the University,
attendance being quite voluntary; but I was so sickened with
lectures at Edinburgh that I did not even attend Sedgwick's
eloquent and interesting lectures. Had I done so I should
probably have become a geologist earlier than I did. I attended,
however, Henslow's lectures on Botany, and liked them much for
their extreme clearness, and the admirable illustrations; but I
did not study botany. Henslow used to take his pupils, including
several of the older members of the University, field excursions,
on foot or in coaches, to distant places, or in a barge down the
river, and lectured on the rarer plants and animals which were
observed. These excursions were delightful.
Although, as we shall presently see, there were some redeeming
features in my life at Cambridge, my time was sadly wasted there,
and worse than wasted. From my passion for shooting and for
hunting, and, when this failed, for riding across country, I got
into a sporting set, including some dissipated low-minded young
men. We used often to dine together in the evening, though these
dinners often included men of a higher stamp, and we sometimes
drank too much, with jolly singing and playing at cards
afterwards.
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