In December there was more talk of his going to Dresden to learn German, but he himself voted for Wiesbaden as being more of a country district where he would have more opportunities for shooting and fishing. After a short visit home his father took him to Wiesbaden in the spring of 1869, when he wrote to his sister "Locky":--
"Many thanks for your spiritual letter which almost tempts me to commit suicide; if I can't get good shooting and fishing in this world I'll have it in the next, if what the Chinaman says is true; but by hook or by crook I will have some in this world too, and make some rare natural history collections into the bargain. But first I must make a little money, but how? not by scribbling away on a three-legged stool in a dingy office in London. I am becoming more and more convinced every day that I should never be able to stand that and everybody I know or have ever had anything to do with says the same thing. I have a great many qualifications for getting on in one of our colonies, viz. perseverance, energy, and a wonderfully good constitution. What makes me recur to the old subject is this: I have made the acquaintance of a family here of the name of K----. I always forget their name although I know them intimately. This gentleman, a German from Brunswick, has been twenty years in Natal (where he made his fortune) and since then eight years in England, and now has become regularly English (speaking English, indeed, without the slightest accent). His wife is an Englishwoman who was born in the Cape Colony, but has always lived with him in Natal; and then he has a very large family. These people give the most splendid accounts of Natal. Firstly, they say that the climate is superb, there being no winter and it not being so hot in summer as in Germany. Then they say that the country is lovely beyond description. They do not praise Cape Colony, only Natal, which they describe as a perfect paradise. They say, too, that Natal itself is a wonderfully gay place and that the society there is very good. The wife says she can't stand Europe at all, the climate is so detestable compared with that of Natal. She says that she often used to go for weeks and weeks up country with her husband and children on shooting excursions, sleeping out in tents all the time, and that taking into consideration the beautiful climate and country there is no enjoyment equal to it, and I am fully of her opinion. They travelled once three days with Dr. Livingstone, but you will hear all about it from them when you come over here."
