Seven Years in South Africa, Volume 2

Resuming medical practice -- My menagerie at / Bultfontein -- Exhibition at Kimberley -- Visit to Wessel's / Farm -- Bushmen's carvings -- Hunting hyenas and earth-pigs -- The / native question in South Africa -- War in Cape Colony and / Griqualand West -- Major Lanyon and Colonel Warren -- Departure for / the coast.

When now for the fourth time I reached the diamond fields I was perfectly insolvent. It was impossible to conceal from myself the difficulty I should find in re-establishing my medical practice, as an absence of a year and nine months had made me little better than a stranger in the place; and yet it was upon my practice alone that I had to rely for obtaining the means of discharging my obligations. Reluctant as I was to leave my designs unaccomplished, I could not resist the desire that came over me to return home and recruit my broken health. The question of means, however, had to be entertained, and the idea occurred to me that perhaps a public exhibition of my collection of natural and ethnographical curiosities might yield me some profit, which I could apply to the expense of a homeward passage. My friend Herr Werner came to see me as soon as he heard of my arrival, and voluntarily advanced me money enough to make my exhibition scheme feasible.