TRAVELLING PUPILS OF LINNAEUS. 
177 
respeQ: 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 KiESTN er, and the two latter by Miciijelis. Forskal 
was a native of Sweden , a pupil of Linnaeus, and well versed in the 
Eastern languages, which he had studied under Mich^elis at Goettingen. 
He was soon after appointed professor at Copenhagen , and heard the 
le&ures of Linn & us 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, 
*763, 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 
