16 



Gogga Brown 



being set up on the banks of the Orange River, 

 the scientific curator of which would not have 

 been averse to a few suitable exchanges ? 



I have been digressing, but this is almost 

 unavoidable in any attempt to portray the life 

 of this extraordinary man. The puzzle he was 

 to the Londoners may serve the purpose, however, 

 of reconciling us now to leaving his youth in the 

 mystic wrappings of silence that he himself 

 obviously desired. 



There is less uncertainty about the motives 

 which drove him to leave England and to seek 

 his fortune under sunnier skies. In one of his 

 folio volumes he enters some notes from those 

 early pages of his Journal which he had personally 

 destroyed. It would appear that in June, 1854, 

 at the age of twenty, he had his fortune told, and 

 it was prophesied " That he would be induced to 

 go to a foreign land, where he would prosper. 

 That on the point of starting he would be 

 prevented from going through foolishly listening 

 to the persuasions and empty promises of friends. 

 That this putting confidence in friends and 

 listening to their persuasions would cause him 

 to suffer, for a space, great hardship and trials. 

 That after his sufferings he would send his box 

 by rail and afterwards go to a foreign or other 



