Obituary . — Henry Harold Welch Pearson, vii 
blows, and between the two of them I had a lively time of it. I was lodged 
in a German military station, which I had to quit in haste. I hear that a few 
days only after I left the station ceased to exist.’ A second expedition was 
planned in 1906. He wrote in September of that year: ‘The Welwitschia 
trip is, I hope, fixed up. The Governor of the territory seems quite keen 
on my going again.’ In the same letter he made a suggestion which might 
with advantage be taken to heart by the governing bodies of Universities. 
‘I am expecting to take my year’s leave in 1908. Unfortunately I have 
to come on half-pay and shall have to economize. I must come, however, 
by some means as I am getting stale. They give us the sixth year off as 
a favour, on half-pay. I lose no opportunity of pointing out that in their 
own interests they ought not only to make it easier for us to take the leave, 
but to insist that we do take it. I don’t think one can stay here con- 
tinuously for more than five years without deterioriating.’ In February, 
1907, he wrote: ‘I and my collections landed this morning. I hope the 
trip has been entirely successful. Here I think I have established a record. 
The Swakop river-bed swarms with game, and therefore the leopard is 
fairly common at Hadjamchab — so common that the sergeant in charge of 
the station considered it quite unsafe to go out at night without arms, 
and indeed did not like me doing so during the day. So on two nights 
when I made expeditions to Welwitschia I was escorted by two men 
armed to the teeth, and you may imagine me sitting on the sand in the 
moonlight, with a bottle of chromacetic acid between my knees, dissecting 
female cones while the two warriors stood at attention behind me. . . . The 
German Government treated me with extraordinary kindness and generosity, 
they cabled instructions from Berlin to aid me as far as possible, and this 
they certainly did. ... I have already told you they invited me to Windhuk.’ 
In the latter part of 1915 he was invited to the same place by General Botha, 
and wrote on January 11, 1916, from the head-quarters of the Union 
forces: ‘ I arrived here to-day after a rather arduous journey of five weeks’ 
duration through what is botanically an exceedingly interesting country. 
In the course of it I have seen what I have long wished to see, viz. the edge 
of the Welwitschia desert. In fact, I have been able to trace the change in 
the flora from the Kalahari plateau right into the desert. Until my 
collections are worked out I cannot quite see whither I am being led, but 
I think I can now more or less co-ordinate many odd facts I have been 
accumulating in the course of these journeys, and at least show the relation 
between the desert flora and those surrounding it. . . . The work this time 
has meant a journey through some most difficult places. Both my wagons 
broke, though fortunately we were able to bring them both to the end of the 
410-mile journey. . . . On another occasion we had to travel all one night to 
reach the next water, and in the course of it we crossed the same rocky river- 
bed no less than twenty times. . „ . However, it is something to feel that one 
