Among the women there was a girl of sixteen, who, by the pleasure with which she seemed to regard his person, particularly attracted the attention of Le Vaillant. Considered as an African she might be pronounced beautiful, and her form, which would have tempted the pencil of an Albano, possessed all those amorous contours which we admire in the Graces. Our traveller appears to have been in general but little susceptible of the charms of women; but the beautiful Gonaqua quickly caused him to feel that when accompanied by a desire to please, female attractions are everywhere irresistible, and to express his admiration he bestowed upon the savage beauty the name of Narina, which, in the Hottentot idiom, signifies “a flower.” Presents, it may be easily imagined, were not spared in this instance. The riches of his camp were in her power,--shawls, necklaces, girdles, every ornament which his European taste loved to contemplate on the female form, was lavished on Narina, who, in the intoxicating delight of the moment, scarcely knew whether she was in heaven or earth. She felt her arms, her feet, her head; and the touch of her dress and ornaments caused fresh pleasure every moment. He then produced a small mirror, more faithful than the lake or stream which had hitherto served for this purpose, and put the finishing stroke to the picture by showing her her own image reflected from its surface. His days now passed in one uninterrupted series of feasts, visits, dances, amusements of every kind. Nothing could have been more favourable to his views of studying Hottentot manners; but with respect to his ulterior design of penetrating far into the solitudes of the desert, the case was different, for his followers contracted in these Circean bowers a disease from which their chief himself, perhaps, was not altogether exempt; that is, an effeminate aversion to fatigue, a secret repugnance to toil, and, what was still worse, the habit of viewing dangers in the light thrown over them by an enamoured fancy, which distorts even more powerfully than the mirage of the desert.