Page:The founding of South Australia.djvu/22

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16
THE FOUNDING OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

memorandum was attached to the Treaty expressive of this understanding."[1]


Very few records have been preserved of the early life of Robert Gouger, the youngest but one of the six brothers. He spent his childhood at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, was educated at a school in Nottingham, and obtained his business knowledge in London in the office of his father, who was a city merchant of excellent repute and of good means.

As a youth he showed signs of unusual intelligence, addicting himself to study for the mere love of it, and beguiling his leisure hours with recreation in Natural History. He was an ardent lover of nature, and delighted in roaming over woodland and moor in search of birds, butterflies, and insects, which he collected and classified with no ordinary skill, stuffing the birds and setting the butterflies himself with infinite pains and dexterity.

Later on he developed a taste for music, and possessing a good rudimentary knowledge, he found the "concord of sweet sounds " a source of enjoyment, not only then but throughout his life. Added to this his tastes were literary; he read standard works on all subjects with care and intelligence, and was in the habit, it would appear, of making digests of what he had read—an excellent habit which has sadly fallen into disuse in the present day. His literary recrea-

  1. "The Prisoner of Burmah," by Henry Gouger Second edition. John Murray, 1862, pp. 297-9.