'''•-preventing afingle fhipmreck, I fhould have applauded myfelf
‘t during my whole life for undertaking it t” The fa£t is, he
has done little more, in the eaffieyn parti of his.map, than copy
from Sparrmann; and the whole to the. northward of Saint
Helena„Bay is a work of fancy. T-wo inftances will be fufficient
to ihew how very little he; is to be t-rufted. He places Cam-
deboo, and the beginning of the Snowy Mountains, in the
latitude of about 28° fouth, inftead of 32° i f fouth, an error
qf more than 290 EngUih miles-! And he makes the Orange
River defcend from the northward, nearly parallel to the coaft,
which, in fa£t, takes its rife near the. eaftern coaft, and afcends
tpwards the nprth-weft. Meflrs. Truter and Somerville, who,
tyvo.years.ago, penetrated farther iato-the interior of Southern
Africa than any Europeans had ever done before, calculated
that they crofted this river in about 29° o' fouth, and between
23” and 240 eaft of.Greenwich. I ikirted its banks from 29° 40'
to 30° 15' fouth, and between the- longitudes of 25° 45' and
26° 30' eaft, which ihews, as 1 1 faid_ before, that its courfe
is north-wefterly. Monfieur Le Vaillant cannot be offended
at my pointing out his miftakes, as he himfelf has obferved,
that “ a traveller ought to conceal nothing that may lead to
“ error in the feiences.” Befides, I feel myfelf called upon to
aqfwer a charge, preferred againft me by Monjieur Grandpre^
the tranflator of my former volume,, that I have attempted to
invalidate the truth of Monjieur Le Vaillant'& work, becaufe it
•was from the pen o f a Frenchman. I can very ferioufly
aftitre Monfieur Grandpre, that he is miftaken; that I
confider the work of Monfieur Le Vaillant as replete with valuable
matter, and ingenious obfervations ; but they are fo
1 jumbled
s o u t h e r n A f r i c a . 21
jumbled together with fiftiofi and romance, that none but
thofe who have followed his fteps can pretend to feparate the
one from the other. It is of little importance to mankind to
know what exquifite amufement Monfieur Le Vaillant could
derive from' carefling his favourite ape, Or to tell the world
that “ Kees was ftill a virgin!” It is fometifnes allowable for
a traveller to be “ himfelf the hero Of each little t a l e b u t
Monfieur Le Vaillant is an hero on every ocCafion. To magnify
his courage and his perfeverance, to detail the prudence
of his meafures, and to defcribe in glowing language his fuffer-'
ings, were foothing to his vanity; and, as moft readers know
how to appreciate them, the florid defcriptions of his compiler
can do little harm; but when he endeavours to miflead the
world on fubjeCts that are important, and to imprefs falfe notions
of the people and the country he pretends to delineate,
he lays himfelf open to cenfure, and ought, in juftice to the
public, to be expofed.
With regard to his not having crofted the Orange River,
I confider the information of his beft friends, the Slabert family,
to be decifive; “ he left Zwartland in July, travelled to
“ the Orange River, and returned in the beginning of tlie
“ following Decemher.” .1 may furely then be allowed to pronounce
this part of his chart as a work of fancy, and his Kora-
quas, Kabobiquasy and Iloofuanas, as “ creatures of the brain.”
By the firft he probably meant \ht KotaSy a tribe of Hottentots
dwelling on the banks of the faid river, confiderably higher than
the place where he vifited i t ; and of whom he might haVe 'ob-
taitied fame account from the Namaaqua3; and his Hoofuanas
might,