1886.] Preddoit^s Address. jfxxiii 



kStell in 1700, and again in tlie Plantca Ranoren^ says '' tiem'ma ex 

 AfriM a Nobilissimo Promont. Bodice Spei Guhernatore, D. Wilhelmo 

 Adriano van der Stell quotannis mittunturr Now, througliout and 

 after the time of the two Van der Stells, the Company's garden was, 

 in turn,- in the charge of Johan Hertog and Henry Bernhard Olden- 

 land. Thunberg briefly states that they collected plants. Burmann, 

 who was an excellent hand at assimilating other men's work, long 

 afterwards published, as an appendix to his Thesaurus Zeylanicus, two 

 rather extended Cape plant lists, one being Hermann's, the other the 

 result of the two gardeners' work. On collation, however, it appears 

 that the latter is almost entirely taken from Petrus Kolbe's delight- 

 fully artless '•^ Beselirijmng van de Kaap de Goede IIoop,^' where the 

 author frankly confesses that he got it from Hertog (''), for the plain 

 reason " datik inij op de kruidkunde niet hebt gelegt." 



The Flora Indica of Nikolaus Laurens Burmann, the son of 

 Johannes Burmann, has for appendix a ^^ Prodromus Florae Capensis,^'' 

 and in the preface the author says that, besides others, it contains 

 the plants which were collected by Oldenland, and are to be found in 

 his herbarium. Francis Yalentyn, the historian of the Dutch East 

 Indies, in his " Beschrijviug van de Kaap der Goede Hoop," p. 22, 

 after praising the beauty of the Cape wild flowers and lamenting that 

 no competent artist had attempted to copy them in iheir natural 

 colours, adds: "Ik heb eenen Herharius vivus gezien die de Heer 

 Hendrick Bernard Oldenland, een fraai Botanicus, dien ik als opzien- 

 der van de Compagnies Tuin hier in't jaar 1695 gekend heb, had bij 

 een gezamelt, en die wel in 13 of 14 deelen in folio met een zeer 

 fraai beschrijviug van yder plant in't Latyn bestont." 



It is, therefore, almost certain that these two men were the humble 

 ministers to the scientific zeal of the Amsterdam and Leiden professors, 

 although most of the honour and thanks were given to Adrian van 

 der Stell. Boerhaave, who engraved twenty-four drawings of Pro- 

 teaceae, sent to him by Hertog, is the only one who gives them any 

 generous praise. Thus, in botany, as in verse making, the adage 

 " Sic vos non vobis^^ repeats itself. One cannot, however, help feeling 

 glad that while the real workers' names are commemorated in the 

 genera Sartogla and Oldeidandia, the most noble Governor Wilhelmus 

 Adrianus van der Stell has not a single Cape plant dedicated to his 

 rather questionable memory. 



Appended to Breynius's works is a tract, " De Frutice Thee," <»n 

 the virtues of the tea plant, then being introduced as an Oriental 

 luxury into Western Europe. It is by Wilhelmus Ten Ehyne, a 

 physician employed in the Dutch East India Company's service at- 

 their Japanese station, Nagasaki. This learned gentleman claims on 

 the title page to be the physician of the Mikado, or as he phases it, 

 " 2Ia(f)ii Liiperatoris Japouice.^'' From Japan he was transferred to 

 Batavia. In 1673 he spent a short time at the Cape, and made 



('') Hertog was not only rolDbed of his botanical repute by Van der Stell, but suffered 

 at his hands much as Nabotli of old did from Ahab. " He compelled one Hertog, the 

 Company's gardener at the Cape, to make a bill of sale to him of a small piece of land 

 which had been granted to the said Hertog and his heirs, in which document Hertog 

 was made to confess a voluntary sale of tlie said estate for a sum of money, which it is 

 well know]i he never received." — Kolbe, Nat. Bcschryvmg, ii. This was for the pur- 

 pose of becoming sole proprietor oE the vast extent of land known as Hottentot 

 Holland, where the Van der Stells are said to have depastured no less than twenty 

 thousand head of cattle. 



