15 
D. Bell’s preparations and prospects were good ; for lie had attended 
classes at St. Andrews University, in fellow-studentship with John 
Goodsir (afterwards Professor of Anatomy in Edinburgh) and his 
brother Joseph, the minister. While at the Cape, his uncle, then 
Colonel Bell, private secretary to the Governor, and afterwards and 
for many years the sage and steady Colonial Secretary, was greatly 
interested in him. 
After a period of service in the Secretary’s office, C. D. Bell was 
transferred to that of the Master of the Supreme Court, and then to 
the Audit Office of the Colonial Government, becoming a favourite 
everywhere ; until it seemed as if his friends intended the young 
man for a future of nothing but quiet, resident, jog-trot official life 
in Cape Town itself, and no further. But in 1833, Sir (then plain 
Dr.) Andrew Smith (of the Army Medical Service) succeeded in 
organising an exploring expedition for penetrating into the interior 
of South Africa on a grander scale than anything hitherto attempted. 
Whereupon the internal fires of C. D. Bell’s own spirit broke forth ; 
and, against the advice and even strenuous opposition of his legal 
guardians (for he was still under • age), he would give up all his 
other prospects in order to seize this opportunity of penetrating into 
the great unknown. And though he was allowed to join the party 
at the last moment, it was only on condition of taking the lowest 
place in it. 
An old friend, who well remembered meeting him just after he 
received his leave, has some years since described in print the wild 
enthusiasm with which C. D. Bell galloped through the streets of 
Cape Town to dash off preparations for the immediate start. He 
was a hand some-looking young fellow too ; not very tall, but broad- 
built and muscular, with a rather brown complexion, but regular 
features of refined and sculpturesque character, piercing black eyes, 
and dark lank hair. 
The expedition, in spite of its numbers, was generally looked on 
as one of imminent danger. The latest previous expedition had 
been cut off to a man ; and no previous parties had ever returned 
without having undergone more or less perils of thirst, of hunger, 
of wild beasts, of lurking Bushmen with poisoned arrows, and whole 
tribes of more openly slaughtering foes. But away went this new 
expedition, striking straight across those stony tablelands of blinding 
