604 MEMOIR OP THE LIFE 



fore, in September and October of the same year, a journey 

 to England, to make a personal acquaintance with the com- 

 mittee of the society ; returned for a few weeks to Germany, 

 to arrange definitively his affairs, and finally left Bonn on the 

 2nd of December, 1840, to enter upon his journey, having 

 obtained from the proper authorities a two years' leave of 

 absence. 



The departure of the expedition, which, according to the 

 first plan, was to be in the end of January, 1841, was 

 deferred from various circumstances and impediments, to the 

 third week in May; when, finally, the ships left Plymouth 

 harbour and Europe, Dr. Vogel embarking in the Wilber- 

 force. During his four months' residence in England, Vogel 

 prepared himself in every possible way for his new destina- 

 tion, and in the parts for March and July of a journal 

 entitled "The Friend of Africa," he published an " Essay on 

 the Botany of Western Central Africa, 3 ' in which the hitherto 

 written treatises on the vegetable productions of this part 

 of the world, were reviewed. From Madeira he addressed 

 letters to his relations and friends in Europe ; but they never 

 reached their destination. From Sierra Leone he wrote on 

 the 30th of June, as follows : 



" We sailed from Madeira by Teneriffe to St. Vincent, 

 one of the Cape de Verd islands, and from thence here. At 

 Teneriffe we remained a day, but I was able to take only a 

 cursory glance, since I was unwell on the passage from 

 Madeira thither and did not venture to leave the ship. We 

 remained a fortnight off St. Vincent ; the island is small, but 

 has an excellent harbour, and was therefore the rendezvous 

 of the ships belonging to the expedition. Anything more 

 comfortless than the view of this island, I never beheld; 

 one might believe that after the formation of the world, a 

 quantity of useless surplus stones was cast into the sea, and 

 that thus the Island of St. Vincent arose. There is nothing 

 but hills and mountains (some of them 2500 feet high), with 

 small valleys, which in the broader parts are very sandy, 

 without a jplant deserving the name of tree ; while tne 



