happiness, however sweet in enjoyment, are often
tedious in recital.

I will only add, that after passing a few days with us, Mr. Willis
returned to his charge, promising to visit us, and eventually to join
us. The Grotto Ernestine, fitted up by Fritz and Parabery, made a pretty
abode for Madame Hirtel and her daughters, and the two islanders.
Minou-minou did not leave his young mammas, and was very useful to them.
I must state, also, that my son Ernest, without abandoning the study of
natural history, applied himself to astronomy, and mounted the large
telescope belonging to the ship; he acquired considerable knowledge of
this sublime science, which his mother, however, considered somewhat
useless. The course of the other planets did not interest her, so long
as all went on well in that which she inhabited; and nothing now was
wanting to her happiness, surrounded as she was by friends.

The following year we had a visit from a Russian vessel, the _Neva_,
commanded by Captain Krusenstern, a countryman and distant relation of
mine. The celebrated Horner, of Zurich, accompanied him as astronomer.
Having read the first part of our journal, sent into Europe by Captain
Johnson, he had come purposely to see us. Delighted with our
establishment, he did not advise us to quit it. Captain Krusenstern
invited us to take a passage in his vessel; we declined his offer; but
my wife, though she renounced her country for ever, was glad of the
opportunity of making inquiries about her relations and friends. As she
had concluded, her good mother had died some years before, blessing her
absent children. My wife shed some tears, but was consoled by the
certainty of her mother's eternal felicity, and the hope of their
meeting in futurity.

One of her brothers was also dead; he had left a daughter, to whom my
wife had always been attached, though she was very young when we left.
Henrietta Bodmer was now sixteen, and, Mr. Horner assured us, a most
amiable girl. My wife wished much to have her with us.

Ernest would not leave Mr. Horner a moment, he was so delighted to meet
with one so eminently skilful in his favourite science. Astronomy made
them such friends, that Mr. Horner petitioned me to allow him to take my
son to Europe, promising to bring him back himself in a few years. This
was a great trial to us, but I felt that his taste for science required
a larger field than our island. His mother was reluctant to part with
him, but cons