AN ENTERPRISING TRAVELLER.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 19, 4 July 1863, Page 6

AN ENTERPRISING TRAVELLER.

A curious volume of travels has just been published at Berlin. It relates the adventures of a German mechanic, named Zippe, a native of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg, who, alone and unaided, without friends, money, scientific or linguistic knowledge, travelled through the greater part of Asia and Africa, to places where no white man had ever been before. Master Zippe, always on foot, with a knapsack on his back, first went through Russia to Constantinople, and from thence along the Caucasian range of mountains to Teheran, the capital of Persia. To gain his bread, he worked here and there on the road at his trade, that of tanner, not too proud to do a little, as occasion offered, in the cobbling

line. From Teheran, Zippe stepped forward, | through Cabool, to Beloochistan, and crossing the Persian Gulf and traversing the whole of Arabia from west to east, went on a pil grimage to Mecca. Unfortunately, when on a visit to the holy Kaaba, among crowds of the faithful, he was recognised as an intruder, and would have been sacrificed on the spot but for the accidental presence of a relative of the Pacha of Egypt, to whom he appealed for protection as an Englishman. It was during the time of the Crimean war, when British prestige stood high, even in Arabia Felix; a fact well-known to the much-tra-velled tanner. The Egyptian prince at once took the civis Romania by the hand, filled his pockets with cash, put a green turban on his head, and gave him a passport as Abdul Zippe, native of Great Britain, province of Mecklenburg. Encouraged by success, Abdul Zippe now crossed the Red Sea, promenaded through Abyssinia, and pushed as far as Timbuctoo. Not many miles from this city he was met by Professor Bohmer, the well-known African traveller. Riding through the desert at the head of his large train of followers, the professor was greatly astonished on seeing a solitary figure emerge on the distant horizon —the figure of a man looking very much like Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday done up into one, plus a knapsack and a large pair of hobnailed boots. The figure came near, and the professor was ready to sink into the ground when he heard himself addressed in the purest Berlin dialect, being asked in quite an off-hand manner the way to Nungu and the kingdom of Dahomey. It seemed so natural to talk high-Dutch at Timbuctoo. Professor Bohmer, having recovered from his astonishment, thought it was too good a thing to part from such a wonderful countryman; so he induced Abdul Zippe, by the promise of shewing him a new country, to jump into an empty saddle and to ride west instead of walking south. A little more persuasion induced the adventurous tanner finally to return with Professor Bohmer to Prussia, and to publish an account of his adventures, the first volume of which, as beforementioiied, has just appeared. The style is simple in the extreme, and there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the narrative.