My intention was to take all my collection from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town by the Union Steamship Company’s “Arab,” and after staying at Cape Town for a fortnight to proceed homewards in the “German.” Accordingly, after seeing all my baggage carefully stowed on board the little cutter that acted as tender to the “Arab”—that lay at anchor about half a mile out—I went back into the town to pay some farewell visits. My consternation may in a measure be imagined when returning a few hours afterwards, I found all my cases piled up promiscuously on the beach. The rope by which the tender was being towed through the surf had broken, and the vessel had been washed back to the shore, but not until she had begun to fill with water.
The great wonder was that the craft had not been dashed against the wooden landing-stage; I could not be too thankful that the collision had been averted; it would have brought all my labours of the last four years to a deplorable end. I had proposed bringing my good horse Mosco with me, and was much disappointed that circumstances prevented me from including him with my general baggage.
As the “Arab” was bound to leave that day, and it was too late for me to get my property conveyed on board, I consented to go without it, leaving it in charge of Herr von Mosenthal, the newly-appointed Austrian Consul, who most kindly undertook to have it forwarded to Cape Town.
The same cordial reception awaited me at Cape Town as I had found at Port Elizabeth, and I delivered several lectures, one of them before the Philosophical Society, which, a year before, had elected me one of their corresponding members. It was here that I had the honour of an introduction to Sir Bartle Frere and several of the members of his staff; I also made the acquaintance of many of the most distinguished members of both houses of the Cape Parliament, and of the leading scientific men and newspaper editors of the place. All alike entered warmly into my plans for the exploration of Central South Africa, and for the opening up of the great continent from the south. The very day that I left Cape Town Mr. Brown did me the honour of bringing forward a motion (which, at the desire of the Government, was only withdrawn on account of my departure) that my services should be secured for making an investigation of the district between the Vaal and the Zambesi.
I passed most of my time on the sea-shore, still adding to my collection of fishes and sponges. Algoa Bay supplied me with numbers of cephalopods, mollusks, sea-snails, aphrodites, and algæ; the surrounding neighbourhood with a considerable variety of plants and fossils.
Before finally quitting Cape Town I received a gift of 40l., which was very acceptable, as I had again been compelled to spend part of the money that I had reserved for my passage.
It was on the 5th of August, 1879, that I embarked on board the “German.” After an absence of seven years, I had been drawn homewards by an irresistible desire to see my kindred and friends. Green Point and the summit of Table Mountain faded from my view, and I was again upon the bosom of the ocean that on my outward voyage had so nearly cost me my life, but which now lay calm and placid till I set my foot safely once more on the soil of Europe.
I would not omit to express my obligation to the Directors of the Union Steamship Company, who franked my baggage all the way from Cape Town to Southampton, nor would I fail to acknowledge the kindness of the Hon. Mr. Littleton, the son of Lord Hatherton, who placed 100l. at my disposal, which materially assisted me in forwarding my collection to Vienna.
My ethnological specimens collected from about thirty[5] tribes of South Africa, and those of my natural history collections amounted to more than 30,000; of these a selection of nearly 12,500[6] was made, and by the permission of the Board of Trade was exhibited in the Pavillon des Amateurs in Vienna. The exhibition was open from May to October, 1880.
Of the live animals that I brought with me, I gave the caracal, the two brown eagles, and a secretary-bird to the London Zoological Society, and the rest I took to Austria. I have already mentioned that the Crown Prince Rudolph did me the honour to accept the two royal cranes. My baboon, which was remarkably tame, and a grey South African crane I sent to the town council of Prague for the public park, and I presented the dark-brown vulture, and one of the long-armed Zanzibar monkeys to the Physiocratical Society of that city.