Peculiar excellence of Le Vaillant’s style--Born in Dutch Guyana--Early pursuits--Is brought to Europe--Studies--Conceives the idea of travelling--Repairs to Holland--Embarks for the Cape of Good Hope--Arrive--Dutch hospitality--Cape Town--Hurricane--Character of the colonists--Admiration of the English, and detestation of the French--Saldanha Bay--Mutton Island--Gazelle and panther-hunting--Harpooning a whale--The Dane’s grave--Prodigious clouds of birds--Blowing-up of a ship-of-war--Loss of Le Vaillant’s papers, collections, and travelling-chest--Melancholy--Meets with a friend--Recommences his collections--Prepares for a journey into the interior--His wagons, merchandise, and arms--Choice of travelling companions--Hottentot followers--Departs from Cape Town--Sweets of liberty--Magnificent scenery--Vast herds of antelopes--Curious species of tortoise--Augments his followers--Arrives on the Dove’s River--Pleasant mode of spending his time--African story-teller--Abundance of game--Seashore--Beautiful district--Fairy-land--Spenser--Gardens of Adonis--Shoots a touraco--Pursues it through the woods--Falls into an elephant-snare--Danger and alarm--Escapes--Torrents of Africa--Verdant palace--Proceeds to the Black River--Accident--Is attacked by illness--Oppressed by melancholy--Recovers--Discovers the footmarks of elephants--Sets out in chase of them--Shoots an elephant--Pursues the herd--Is in imminent danger--Escapes--Exquisite flavour of an elephant’s foot--Falls in with a tribe of wild Hottentots--Manners and opinions--Approaches the country of the Kaffers--Terrors of his followers--Despatches messengers into Kaffer-land--Fury of an African storm--Wild beasts--Meets with a new tribe of Hottentots--Exchange of presents--Enamoured of a Hottentot girl--Return of his messengers, accompanied by Kaffers--Dutch spies in the camp--Alarm of the Kaffers--Their departure--Prepares to enter Kaffraria--His people refuse to proceed--Selects a small number of the bravest of his Hottentots for the expedition--Quits his camp--Enters Kaffraria--Solitude and desertion of the country--Returns--Contemplates his return to the Cape--Enormous herds of antelopes--Sublime scenery of the Sneuw Bergen--The Bushmen--Great scarcity of water--Reaches the Cape--Reposes--Unhappy opinion--Projects a second journey--Preparations--Departure--Nests of the white ant--Dreadful scarcity of water--Discovers a well in the desert--Elephant’s River--African harpies--Is near perishing in the Elephant’s River--Abandons his chariots in the desert--Forerunners of a tempest--Cloud-worshippers--A storm--Quenches his burning thirst--Visits a Hottentot horde--Hospitality--Is overtaken by a Dutchman, who intoxicates his followers--Terrible accident--Horrors of the savage life--Proceeds on his journey--Beholds a giraffe, and kills one--Presence of women in the camp--Arrives on the frontiers of the Hoozwana country--New