From Cyprus he sailed to Rhodes and Scio, and thence to Smyrna, carrying along with him an incredible quantity of curiosities in the three kingdoms of nature, which he had collected in Egypt and the Levant. His sole desire now was to return by the first occasion which should present itself to Sweden; but his strength had been so much impaired by the fatigue of travelling and the heats of Palestine, that he was constrained to defer his departure from Smyrna. His disorder, however, which was a confirmed consumption, proceeded rapidly; and although, as is usual with persons labouring under that disease, he continued to preserve hope to the last, his struggles were soon over. His death happened on the 9th of February, 1752, in a small country-house in the neighbourhood of Smyrna.
His friends in Sweden, by whom he was much beloved, were greatly afflicted at the news of his death; and to add to their sorrow, they learned at the same time, that having during his residence in the East contracted a debt of one hundred and fifty pounds, his collections and papers had been seized by his creditors, who refused to give them up until the debt should be paid; and that thus his name and reputation seemed likely to perish with his body. Neither Linnæus nor any other of Hasselquist’s friends in Sweden were able to raise this small sum; when the queen, being informed of the circumstance, generously advanced the money from her own private purse; and therefore it is to the munificence of this lady that we owe one of the most curious books of travels of its kind that have ever appeared. In about a year after this the collections and papers arrived at the palace of Drottningholm; and Linnæus, who was no novice in these matters, declares that he was exceedingly surprised at the number and variety of the curiosities, among which were the rarer plants of Anatolia, Egypt, Palestine, and Cyprus; stones and earths from the most remarkable places in Egypt and Palestine; the rarer fishes of the Nile; the serpents of Egypt, together with its more curious insects, drugs, mummies, Arabic manuscripts, &c.
The editing of Hasselquist’s manuscripts was confided to Linnæus himself, and unquestionably it could not have been intrusted to better hands. The work, in fact, remains, and will remain, a lasting monument of the superior talents of the traveller, and of the taste, munificence, and affection of his friends.