AFRICAN EXPLORERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 85 
answered by the appearance of natives or settlers, when 
the bird, repeating its call unceasingly, slowly Hies from 
place to place towards the spot where the bees have 
made their home. Arrived at the nest, whether it be in 
the cleft of a rock, in a hollow tree, or in some under¬ 
ground cavity, the guide hovers about it for a few 
seconds, and then perches hard by, and remains a silent 
and hidden spectator of the pillage in which he hopes 
subsequently to have his share. Of this phenomenon I 
have myself twice been a witness.” 
On the 12th of April, 1776, on his way back to the 
Cape, Sparrman heard that a large lake, the only one in 
the colony, had been discovered to the north of the 
Schneuwberg district. A little later, the traveller got 
back to the Cape, and embarked for Europe with the 
numerous natural history collections he had made. 
About the same time, between 1772—1775, Thun- 
berg, the Swede, whom Sparrman had met at the Cape, 
made three successive journeys in the interior of Africa. 
They were not, any more than Sparrman’s, actual jour¬ 
neys of discovery ; and we owe the acquisition of no 
new geographical fact to Thunberg. He did but make 
a vast number of interesting observations on the birds 
of the Cape, and he also ascertained a few interesting 
details respecting the various races of the interior, which 
turned out to be far more fertile than was at first sup¬ 
posed. 
Thunberg was followed in the same latitudes by an 
English officer, Lieutenant William Paterson, whose 
chief aim was to collect plants and other objects of 
natural history. He penetrated a little further north 
than the Orange River, and into Kaffraria a good deal 
further east than Fish River. To him we owe the first 
notice of the giraffe ; and his narrative is rich in impor¬ 
tant observations on the natural history, structure, and 
inhabitants of the country. 
It is a curious fact that the Europeans attracted to 
South Africa by zeal for geographical discovery were 
far less numerous than those whose motive was love of 
natural history. We have already mentioned Sparrman, 
