LINN^US. 257 



where, by his attention to natural history, he attracted 

 the notice of the celebrated professor of that science. 

 In 1 765, he made a voyage to China with his cousin, 

 Captain Ekeberg, who commanded a ship belonging 

 to the East India Company, and who was also fond 

 of similar studies. On his return, he described, in 

 an academic thesis, the plants and animals which 

 he had collected on this voyage. Having now form- 

 ed a strong attachment to botany and zoology, he 

 again became desirous of travelling ,- but his poverty 

 would have prevented him had not his friend Eke- 

 berg procured for him the office of tutor to the chil- 

 dren of a person residing at the Cape of Good Hope, 

 where he arrived in 1772. Soon after, he had the 

 pleasure of meeting his countryman Thunberg, from 

 whom, however, he was soon forced to separate ; 

 and in October made a journey to Paarl, on his 

 return from which he occupied himself with a de- 

 scription of the plants indigenous to the district in 

 which he resided. Captain Cook, on his second voy- 

 age, having arrived at the Cape, the twoForsters, who 

 accompanied him as naturalists, went to see Sparr- 

 mann, and persuaded him to go along with them. 

 This he was not loath to do, and, accordingly, had the 

 pleasure of circumnavigating the globe. On revisit- 

 ing the Cape, in July 1775, he subsisted by practis- 

 ing medicine, and in a short time acquired sufficient 

 funds to enable him to undertake an excursion into 

 the interior. He penetrated 350 leagues in a north- 

 easterly direction, and returned with a large stock of 

 plants and animals. The same year he revisited his 

 native country, where he found that in his absence 

 he had been promoted to the degree of Doctor in Me- 

 dicine. He was now elected a member of the Royal 



Q 



