PERSEVERANCE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 27

brated Temminck, and, after five months spent in
preparations, embarked in December for the Cape
of Good Hope. Unhappily for Le Vaillant, war
had just broken out between England and Holland.
Ihe vessels at the Cape were ordered to Saldanha
Bay, to conceal them from English cruisers, and
he accompanied them. An English squadron dis-
covered their lurking-place, and the captain of the
ship on board which the travelling equipage of the
naturalist was embarked blew it up, to prevent its
falling into the enemy’s hands. By this misfortune
Le Vaillant saw himself reduced to the brink of
despair. Far from his adopted country, without
friends, without shelter, almost without hope; his
only resources were his gun, six ducats he had in
his pocket, and the clothes he wore. In this ex-
tremity he was received by a friendly colonist, and
treated most hospitably. Boers, a Dutch official,
advanced everything necessary to fit him out for
the expedition he proposed to make, and the Go-
vernment officers did all they could to promote his
enterprise.

During the three years he spent in the colony
he made two excursions. ‘The first was to the
westward, at no great distance from the coast, to
the Great I’ish River. He ascended one of the
branches of this stream to the frontier of the
Gouaquois and Caffres, into whose country he