xviii INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



sandy wastes, a broken country, and tangled underwood, it was 

 a magnificent sight to him thus, in the heart of the continent, 

 to view a noble stream, at least 1200 feet in breadth, but which, 

 to his astonishment, he found to flow to the eastward instead 

 of to the westward. 



His ardent desire was now to follow up this mighty discovery ; 

 but the same adverse fate that had already more than once 

 mocked his best endeavours even now crossed his path. He 

 and nearly all his people were suddenly struck down with a 

 dangerous fever, to which several of them shortly succumbed ; 

 and even when he himself began slowly to recover, many of his 

 followers were still on the brink of the grave. He could not, 

 therefore, longer hesitate in retreating from this most interesting, 

 but to him most melancholy region. "To linger where I 

 was," writes he*, "seemed certain death; and any visions of 

 future success I might still entertain were too remote to justify 

 me in so fearfully imperilling the lives of my fellow creatures. 

 A precipitate retreat appeared therefore quite imperative. It 

 cost, nevertheless, a severe struggle between duty and ambition 

 before I could resolve upon it. I obeyed at last the monitions 

 of conscience, and bade, with a sigh, farewell to the pursuit of 

 fame and glory for ever. That this act of self-renunciation was 

 not determined on without acute pangs it would be useless to 

 deny. After such toils ! such hardships ! such sacrifices ! and 

 with the prospect of a final crowning success just dawning on 

 me, it may well be imagined that I turned my back on the land 

 of promise with drooping spirits and a heavy heart." 



Andersson was thus unable to ascertain the further course of 

 the Okavango not even whether, as is most probable, it is con- 

 nected with the river-system of the Lake Ngami; so far as 

 we know this problem remains still unsolved. 



On their return journey, which commenced in the beginning 

 of June, and during which but slow progress was made, owing 

 * The Okavango River, p. 218. 



