of William John Burchell. 47 



translated into French in 1794, when he was about twelve 

 years old. Burchell was also an accomplished artist and 

 musician. He must have had a remarkable constitution, for 

 he enjoyed uninterrupted good health and vigour throughout 

 his long and, with the exception of native attendants, solitary 

 journeys. He laboured throughout the whole of the time 

 with astonishing energy — collecting, observing, recording, 

 sketching, and writing detailed journals. The details of his 

 tragic end in his eightieth year also show that he possessed 

 extraordinary resolution at that advanced age. 



Burchell's features at about thirty-four years of age are 

 preserved in a drawing made by J. S. Cotman in 1816, the 

 year after the South- African travels had come to an end. 

 The drawing was etched by Mrs. Dawson Turner, the grand- 

 mother of Sir Joseph Hooker. The portrait, of which there 

 is a copy at Oxford, brings back to us Burchell in the full 

 vigour of manhood. The face is highly intellectual and 

 indicative of strong purpose and resolution, yet singularly 

 attractive, even winning. The appreciation and description 

 in his South-African travels of many a quaint incongruity 

 shows that he possessed an ample fund of humour. His 

 invariable breadth of view and justice are well seen in the 

 calm discussion of the methods and results of missionary 

 labours and his accounts of the shabby treatment he received 

 from some of the Boers, in which he always warns the 

 reader against coming to a too hasty conclusion as to the 

 character of a whole people. 



In 1805, when he was about twenty-three, Burchell was 

 appointed " Schoolmaster and acting Botanist " at St. Helena 

 by the East India Company, and he remained in the island for 

 five years, until his departure for Cape Town in order to begin 

 his South-African travels. He was elected a Fellow of the 

 Linnean Society, Feb. 15, 1808. The romance of his life 

 happened in St. Helena, and probably exerted a profound 

 influence upon his character, explaining much that is difficult 

 to understand, and especially the secretive barren period which 

 followed his return from Brazil in 1830. His father had 

 disapproved of Burchell's engagement to a lady in Fulham, 

 and had, perhaps, obtained the appointment in St. Helena, 

 hoping that everything might be forgotten. But the two 

 still corresponded, and Burchell persuaded the lady to come 

 out and join him in the island. During the voyage someone 

 on the ship — it is said, the captain — fell in love with her and 

 married her. Burchell had always been a naturalist and 

 collector, but it is probable that the terrible shock drove him 

 into these pursuits and away from companionship with his 



