TRAVELLING PUPILS OF LINN^US. 177 



respe8; which Count Hoepken entertained for him, was created a 

 knight of the polar star in the year 1775? demonstrated the necessity of 

 obtaining a more extensive knowledge of that country, which had 

 been the theatre of most of the events related in Holy Scripture; and 

 he brought it so far, through the interference of the Danish Ministers 

 Counts Bernstorf and Moltke at Copenhagen, that an expedition 

 was made into Arabia, which will always be recorded in the history 

 of Frederick V. King of Denmark, as a striking and honourable 

 testimony of his liberality and zeal in the promotion of the sciences. 

 Five persons were chosen for this purpose, viz. Counsellor Niebuhr, 

 ■ professor Forskal, professor Von Haven, professor Cramer, M. D. 

 and Baurnfeind, the painter. The former had been proposed by 

 Counsellor K.ESTNER, and the two latter by Mich^lis. Forskal 

 was a native of Sweden, di ^n^W of Linn^us, and well versed in the 

 Eastern languages, which he had studied under Mich^lis at Goettingen. 

 He was soon after appointed professor at Copenhagen, and heard the 

 ledures of Linnaeus upon natural history at Upsal. The voyage was 

 commenced in 1761 ; Arabia Felix proved as unfortunate to these 

 naturalists as it had once proved to Hasselquist. Forskal sent a 

 letter, with some dispatches to Count Bernstorf, on the 9th of June, 

 1763, in which he gave him a precise account of the Arabian balsam 

 of Mecca. These were the last dispatches which he ever sent to Den- 

 mark. One month after, on the 11th of July 1763, he departed this 

 life, in the 31st year of his hopeful age. The fate of his companions 

 was equally fatal. Death snatched them all away in Arabia, except 

 M. Niebuhr, who afterwards published an account of this memorable 

 voyage. The observations of Forskal were not lost. His surviving 



a a friend 



