LAKE NGAML 



CHAPTER I. 



Departure from Sweden. — Day-dreams. — Fraternal Love. — A tempt- 

 ing Offer. — Preparations for Journey to Africa. — Departure from 

 England. — Amval at the Cape. — Towm and Inhabitants. — Tabic 

 Mountain. — Curious Legend. — Preparation for Journey into the 

 Interior. — Departure for Walfisch Bay. 



It was at the close of the year 1849 that I left Gothen- 

 bourg, in a sailing vessel, for Hull, at which place I arrived 

 in safety, after a boisterous and somewhat dangerous pas- 

 sage of about fourteen days' duration. Though a Swede by 

 birth, I am half an Englishman by parentage ; and it was 

 with pleasure that I visited, for the second time, a country 

 endeared to me by the ties of kindred and the remembrance 

 of former hospitality. 



My stay in England, however, was intended to be only of 

 short duration. I carried with me thither a considerable 

 collection of living birds and quadrupeds, together with nu- 

 merous preserved specimens of natural history, the produce 

 of many a long hunting excursion amid the mountains, lakes, 

 and forests of my native country. These I was anxious to 

 dispose of in England, and then proceed in my travels, though 

 to what quarter of the globe I had scarcely yet determined. 



From my earliest youth, my day-dreams had carried me 

 into the wilds of Africa. Passionately fond of traveling, ac- 

 customed from my childhood to field sports and to the study 

 of natural history, and (as I hope I may say with truth) de- 

 sirous of rendering myself useful in my generation, I earnest- 



