1886.] Presidents Address. xlix 



was Ecklon's junior by four years, and was little more than fifty-nine 

 years old at his death. Ecklon survived his old comrade exactly ten 

 years, scarcely, however, as we have seen, to be deemed happier in 

 the longer space of life accorded to him . 



To my old and valued friend, the Rev. L. R. Baur, I owe much of 

 the detail here given. He writes : ''I was great friends with Mr. 

 Zeyher, and he was a most entertaining companion, recounting his 

 adventures in different parts of South Africa, having been a keen 

 hunter and an excellent shot. In the Addo Bush he was fortunate 

 enough to kill an elephant with a single bullet, and once finished off 

 with his dagger only, a tiger (panther), which his dogs had brought 

 to bay But he told these things in a simple, matter-of-fact way, 

 without a trace of bragging. I well remember the tramp up Table 

 Mountain with him and young Juritz as guides to Dr. Seemann. It 

 was just as Juritz relates, the Doctor's shoes were thin and light, and 

 he had worn the soles through, and was quite lame before we got 

 home again. I had no near acquaintance with Ecklon, who then 

 lived in a very reserved way in Hout or Castle- street. Dr. Pappe 

 and he were not very intimate either — perhaps there was some 

 estrangement — who knows ? " 



Partly contemporary with Ecklon and Zeyher, and sharing with 

 them the botanical spoUa opima of South Africa was Johann Francis 

 Drege, a nativ^e of Altona. He arrived here in 1826, and collected 

 with much greater system and scientific insight than had been done 

 before by any one, Burchell excepted. Indeed, I have often surmised 

 that as Burchell's two volumes of travels, with their excellent aqua- 

 tint illustrations, careful itinerary, and accurate map, were published 

 in 1822-4, Drege must have perused them, and taken the author as 

 his model in his laboriously <iOTir^W.edi Documente {^ ^), giving the details 

 of localities and altitudes, and a species list, with references back to 

 the habitats, all strikingly parallel to Burchell's Catalogus Geographicus. 

 In one respect he went beyond the elder traveller, for he was the first 

 to attempt the grouping of the South African flora into geographical 

 region?. Considering the data at his command, this work rises almost 

 to an effort of genius, although it has hardly received the recog- 

 nition it fairly merits. I am happy to think that it has been 

 possible for a member of our own society ( ^ ^ ) to take up this imperfect 

 work of Drege' s, and, assimilating the large amount of new data 

 which the last fifty years have afforded, to rebuild the whole into 

 a simpler and more coherent structure. After sweeping off an 

 ample harvest from the south-west corner of the Colony, he spent 

 eight months in investigating the flora of the Grreat Karroo, the 

 Nieuweveldt, Winterveldt, the Gf-ouph and Camdeboo. Returning, he 

 fixed his residence at the Paarl, and made that point his centre for the 

 excursions of the next two years. His next important journey in 1829 

 led him along the Zwartberg, eastwards to the Sunday's Elver in its 

 upper course, through the Zwartruggens. thence northwards, past 

 Grraaff-Reinet to the Sneeuweberg, thence south-east along the Great 

 Fish River Valley to Albany, finally back to the Cape by way of 



('') Zwei Pflanzen^eographisclie Documente vou J. F. Drege, nebst einer 

 Einleitiing von Dr. E. Meyer, Prof, iu Konigsberg. Regensburg, 18i3, 8vo, 230 pp., c. 

 chart, geogr. 



('^) Vide " Sketch of the Flora of South Africa," by Harry Bohis, F.L.S., in the 

 Official Handbook of the Cape of Good Hope : Capetown, 1886,- 8vo. 32 p.p. 



