136 
H. H. W. PEARSON, F.R.S., Sc.D. 
Soon after his arrival at the Cape Pearson set himself the task of continuing 
the investigation of Welwitschia so splendidly inaugurated by Sir Joseph 
Hooker. In May, 1904, he wrote from Cape Town: “A year and a week 
since I arrived in the land of sunshine, dust, and politics and yet this is the 
first time I have set myself to write to you.... I started last year with 11 
students. This year I have 22.... The Council is putting me up a splendid 
laboratory which I shall not be ashamed to show you when you come out.... 
I thought of you a good deal in January last when I spent two glorious days 
in the heart of the Damaraland desert in the company of the most magnificent 
array of flowering Welwit-schias that ever man saw. You must know that 
when I was first appointed here I had a dream the purport of which was that 
Welwitschia was delivered into my hands. And sure enough without any 
particular effort on my part I found myself in Welwitschia-land and hoped 
to spend some weeks there. Fate, however, determined otherwise. The 
Hereros and the Germans came to 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 
economise. 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 continuously for more than 5 years without deteriorating.” 
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 Haikamchab — 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 
