24 



Gogga Brown 



I have, however, been able to drag some details 

 of the journey out of him. These I have culled 

 from a letter which he wrote to a banker friend 

 in England, seven years after he had arrived in 

 South Africa. Brown evidently attached great 

 importance to his correspondence, as he copied 

 methodically into his Journal all the letters he 

 received and all the replies he sent out in return. 

 This is very fortunate, for there is nothing so 

 revealing and at times so damning as a letter, and 

 that is what is needed by the biographer. It is 

 not that there is anything in Brown s letters but 

 what is to his everlasting credit, and they were 

 of studied phraseology and content, but by 

 their very nature they divulge where he seemed 

 inclined to conceal, and they certainly illuminate 

 a great deal that would otherwise have seemed 

 mysterious. 



In the above-mentioned letter Brown relates 

 how he first of all took ship to Holland, where 

 he stayed ten days before embarking on a Dutch 

 ship bound for the Cape of Adventure. He says 

 not a word about the weather or the navigation, 

 nor does he mention that great new constellation 

 of the Heavens, the Southern Cross, to which he 

 fell heir, as his ship headed towards the warm 

 and genial South. He did not enjoy that at all ; 

 his mind was too full of the discomforts of the 



