CHAPTER 1. 
Departure from Voigstedt — Frankfort-on-the-Main — Rotterdam — Voy- 
age to England — Arrival in London — The Docks — Natural History 
Institutions — The Niger Expedition — Personal Experiences. 
1. Tlie peaceful Home with all its pleasant recollections of a hap- 
pily spent Youth, with its many remembrances of nooks and crannies 
and the occasion of any event important to the childish mind, which fol- 
low us like faithful companions from early to old age, already lay 
behind us on the morning of 29th October, 1840. Farewell, a farewell 
perhaps for life, had been taken of my aged father, my brothers, sisters 
and friends. Alongside my brother and liis Indian servant I rode in 
silence over the autumn-bare plains of golden pasture to a very stirring 
uncertain Future, while my heart, still bound by thousands upon thous- 
ands of ties tarried in the Past, and my soul sought to penetrate the 
Future in the hope of answering the anxious thought: “Will you ever 
see these folks of yours again, when, after long years of absence, you 
once more get as close to home as you are now?” Put to what my heart 
could neither answer “Yea” nor “Nay,” that what my spirit could not 
fathom, was solved bv the faithful prophet of my own country, by the 
legend garlanded Kyffhäuser* now lighted up with the rays of the 
autumn sun. According to the oft-proven refrain: — 
If Emperor Eedbeard takes off his hat, 
Fine weather to-morrow is presaged by that: 
Should he however now choose it to wear, 
To shun any journey, just take every care, 
its friendly beaming aspect promised me a successful journey, and a 
home-coming when I should once again find all upon whom I had set 
my love. 
2. However much we may smile in calmer moments at our clinging 
to such absolutely independent coincidences, they nevertheless, in times 
of dire distress, undoubtedly exercise over our whole personality a 
power which even the most forcible process of reasoning is unable to 
influence. 
3. That faithful friend, the far-stretching meadow-land, soon pass- 
ed out of sight, and the horses quickly trotted on towards Gottingen 
where my brother wanted to spend two days to make Professor Gauss's 
personal acquaintance and at the same time to familiarize himself at 
the Observatory with the procedure necessary for meteorological obser- 
vations. 
*Kyffhauser is a range of hills in Thuringia, Germany, with the ruined castles of Rothen- 
burg and Kyffhausen. 
“ Hat Kaiser Rothbart ab den Hut 
So wird auch morgen das Wetter gut 
Hat er ihn aber aufgethan 
So sollst du auch das Reisen lahn.” 
The Kyffhauser was a good omen to the intending traveller. If the brow of the height 
were clear, good weather could be expected on the morrow etc. Emperor Redbeard is Bar- 
barossa who is Supposed to be living in state here asleep and only waiting to be wakened) 
(Ed.) 
