Chapter X: Part 10

“Is it not famous to be here within the frigid zone, more than two degrees within the arctic, and nearer to the pole than the most northern shores of Iceland? For a long time darkness has been a stranger to us. The sun, as yet, passes not below the horizon, but he dips his crimson visage behind a mountain to the north. This mountain we ascended, and had the satisfaction to see him make his courtesy without setting. At midnight the priest of this place lights his pipe during three weeks in the year by means of a burning-glass from the sun’s rays.”

Having, for the reason above stated, given up the design of visiting the polar regions, they returned to Tornea, and thence proceeded through Sweden and Norway; which latter country (probably for the same reason which made Pope of the opinion of the last author he read) he preferred for sublimity of scenery to Switzerland. They then entered Russia, and arrived at Petersburg on the 26th of January, 1800. Clarke, it is well known, entertained a very mean opinion of the Russians; but, judging from the testimony of Bishop Heber--a calmer and more dispassionate man--as well as from that of many other travellers, it would appear that his judgment was neither rash nor ill founded. “We have been here five days,” says he. “Our servants were taken from us at the frontiers, and much difficulty had we with the Russian thieves as we came along. Long accustomed to Swedish honesty it is difficult for us to assume all at once a system of suspicion and caution: the consequence of this is that they remove all the moveables out of their way. I wish much to like the Russians, but those who govern them will take care I never shall. This place, were it not for its magnificence, would be insufferable. We silently mourn when we remember Sweden. As for our harps there are no trees to hang them upon; nevertheless we sit down by the waters of Babylon and weep. They open all the letters, and therefore there is something for them to chew upon. More I dare not add; perhaps your experience will supply the rest.”

To this, if we add his picture of the execrable despot who then governed Russia, enough will have been said of his experience at Petersburg. “It is impossible,” he writes, “to say what will be the end of things here, or whether the emperor is more of a madman, a fool, a knave, or a tyrant. If I were to relate the ravings, the follies, the villanies, the cruelties of that detestable beast, I should never reach the end of my letter. Certainly things cannot long go on as they do now. The other day the soldiers by his order cudgelled a gentleman in the street because the cock of his hat was not in a line with his nose. He has sent the Prince of Condé’s army to the right-about, which is hushed up, and it is to appear that they are ceded to Great Britain. He refuses passports even to ambassadors for their couriers. One is not safe a moment. It is not enough to act by rule, you must regulate your features to the whims of a police officer. If you frown in the street you will be taken up.”

From Petersburg they proceeded in sledges to Moscow, which, like most oriental cities, seemed all splendour from a distant view, but shrunk upon their entering it into a miserable collection of hovels, interspersed with a few grotesque churches and tawdry palaces. This place, which is too well known to require me to dwell much upon its appearance, they quitted to proceed to the Crimea. Arriving at Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov, Clarke amused himself with swimming in the Don, the ancient Tanais, between Europe and Asia, and in thinking of the vast extent of country over which his good fortune had already carried him, and of the far more glorious scenes--Palestine--Egypt--Greece--which yet lay in his route. “Do, for God’s sake imagine,” says he in a letter to a friend, “what I must feel in the prospect of treading the plains of Troy!--Tears of joy stream from my eyes while I write.” To a person of such a frame of mind--and no others should ever leave their firesides--travelling, next to the performance of virtuous actions, affords the most exquisite pleasure upon earth. The imagination, impregnated by a classical education with glowing ideas of what certain scenes once were, invests them with unearthly splendour, of which no experience can ever afterward divest them.

Upon their arriving at Achmedshid in the Crimea, they remained some time in the house of Professor Pallas, who entertained them in so hospitable a manner that Clarke, who spoke of men as he found them, could not forbear imparting to his friends at home the warm gratitude of his heart. “It is with him we now live,” says he, “till the vessel is ready to sail for Constantinople; and how can I express his kindness to me? He has all the tenderness of a father to us both. Every thing in his house he makes our own. He received me worn down with fatigue and ill of a tertian fever. Mrs. Pallas nursed me, and he cured me, and then loaded me with all sorts of presents; books, drawings, insects, plants, minerals, &c. The advantage of conversing with such a man is worth the whole journey from England, not considering the excellent qualities of his heart. Here we are in quite an elegant English house; and if you knew the comfort of lying down in a clean bed after passing months without taking off your clothes in deserts and among savages, you would know the comfort we feel. The vessel is at Kosloff, distant forty miles; and when we leave the Crimea Mr. and Mrs. Pallas and their daughter, who has been married since we were in the house to a general officer, go with us to Kosloff; and will dine with us on board the day we sail. They prepare all our provisions for the voyage.”

The whole of their stay in Russia was rendered so exceedingly disagreeable--first by the savage tyranny of the emperor, and secondly by the evil character of his subjects, which, as being everywhere felt, was infinitely more annoying--that our traveller regarded himself among a civilized and hospitable people when he reached Constantinople. In fact, he found himself in a sort of English society which, congregating together at the palace of the embassy, engaged in the same round of amusements which would have occupied them in London. The time which these agreeable occupations left him was employed in searching for and examining Greek medals, and in viewing such curiosities as were to be found in Constantinople; among other things the interior of the seraglio, where no Frank, he says, had before set his foot. He moreover found time to peruse many of the various publications called forth by the Bryant controversy respecting the existence of Troy; and so unsteady was his faith on this point, that, after dipping a little into the subject, he began to imagine something like a new theory to explain the manner in which we are required to believe Homer might have invented the whole groundwork of the Iliad! However, upon shortly afterward arriving on the spot, this flimsy vagary vanished. Jacob Bryant and his followers were found to be the pettifogging skeptics which they have always been considered by sensible men. “The Plain of Troy now,” exclaims our traveller, “offers every fact you want; there is nothing doubtful. No argument will stand an instant[3] in opposition to the test of inquiry upon the spot; penetrating into the mountains behind the Acropolis the proofs grow more numerous as you advance, till at length the discussion becomes absurd, and the nonsense of Bryantism so ridiculous that his warmest partisans would be ashamed to acknowledge they had ever assented for an instant to such contemptible blasphemy upon the most sacred records of history.”

[3] An intaglio purchased by Clarke at Constantinople is exceedingly remarkable, as throwing light upon the original story of Æneas, before it had been deformed by Virgil or Ovid. “There are poor Turks at Constantinople, whose business it is to wash the mud of the common sewers of the city, and the sand of the shore. These people found a small onyx, with an antique intaglio of most excellent workmanship, representing Æneas flying from the city, leading his boy by the hand, and bearing on his shoulders (who do you suppose?)--not his father--for in that case the subject might have been borrowed from Virgil or Ovid--but--his wife, with the Penates in her lap; and so wonderfully wrought that these three figures are brought into a gem of the smallest size, and wings are added to the feet of Æneas,

‘Pedibus timor addidit alas!’

to express by symbols of the most explicit nature the story and the situation of the hero. Thus it is proved that a tradition, founded neither on the works of Homer nor the Greek historians (and perhaps unknown to Virgil and the Roman poets, who always borrowed their stories from such records as were afforded by the works of ancient artists), existed among the ancients in the remotest periods, respecting the war of Troy. The authenticity of this invaluable little relic, the light it strews on ancient history, its beauty, and the remarkable coincidence of the spot on which it was found, with the locality of the subject it illustrates, interested so much the late Swedish minister, Mr. Heidensham, and other antiquarians of the first talents in this part of the world, that I have given it a very considerable part of this letter, hoping it will not be indifferent to you.”

From the Troad Clarke proceeded to Rhodes, the Gulf of Glaucus, on the coast of Asia Minor, and thence by sea to Egypt, where the English fleet was then lying in Aboukir Bay. He did not, however, see much of Egypt on this occasion, for the country was still in the possession of the French; and therefore, after a short visit to Rosetta, he sailed for Cyprus, and on returning from this voyage proceeded in the Romulus to Palestine. Here he visited Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and the Lake of Genesareth; near which he enjoyed an opportunity of conversing with a party of Druses. Almost every traveller in Syria has given us some new particulars respecting this curious people. “They are,” says Clarke, “the most extraordinary people on earth; singular in the simplicity of their lives by their strict integrity and virtue. They only eat what they earn by their own labour, and preserve at this moment the superstitions brought by the Israelites out of Egypt. What will be your surprise to learn that every Thursday they elevate the molten calf, before which they prostrate themselves, and having paid their adoration, each man selects among the women present the wife he likes best, with whom the ceremony ends. The calf is of gold, silver, or bronze. This is exactly that worship at which Moses was so incensed in descending from Mount Sinai. The cow was the Venus of the Egyptians, and of course the calf a personification of animal desire; a Cupid before which the sacrifices so offensive to Moses were held. For it is related they set up a molten calf, which Aaron had made from the earrings of the Israelite women; before which similar sacrifices were made. And certainly the Druses on Mount Lebanon are a detachment of the posterity of those Israelites who are so often represented in Scripture as deserters from the true faith, falling back into the old superstitions and pagan worship of the country from whence they came. I could not visit Mount Lebanon; but I took every method necessary to ascertain the truth of this relation; and I send it you as one of the highest antiquities and most curious relics of remote ages which has yet been found upon earth.”

His stay in Palestine was exceedingly short, just sufficient to enable him to say he had looked at it. He then returned to Aboukir Bay, where his brother was commander of an English ship; which now, on the 6th of August, 1801, swarmed with French prisoners like a beehive. When the road to Cairo was rendered practicable by the defeat of the French, our traveller proceeded to that city, where the most interesting objects existing were the beautiful young women who had been torn by the French soldiers from the harems of the bey; and then, when they evacuated the country, deserted and abandoned to their fate. Here he procured a complete copy of the “Arabian Nights,” which, with many other works that were so many sealed books to him, gave rise to much unavailing regret that he had bestowed little or no attention on the Arabic language. The Pyramids he of course admired. “Without hyperbole,” says he, “they are immense mountains; and when clouds cast shadows over their white sides they are seen passing as upon the summit of the Alps.” From the pinnacle of the loftiest he dated one of his letters to England, all of which are filled with lively dashing gossip, accompanied with rash, headlong, unphilosophical decisions, which the reflections of a moment, perhaps, might have served to dissipate. The news of the capitulation of Alexandria induced him to hurry back to the coast. He found the French troops still in the city, but preparing to embark with all speed. Great disputes, he says, had already arisen between General Hutchinson and Menou respecting the antiquities and collections of natural history which had been made by the French; the former claiming them as public, and the latter refusing them as private property. The part performed by Clarke himself in this affair he shall relate in his own words:--“When I arrived in the British camp, General Hutchinson informed me that he had already stipulated for the stone in question (the Rosetta marble), and asked me whether I thought the other literary treasures were sufficiently national to be included in his demands. You may be sure I urged all the arguments I could muster to justify the proceeding; and it is clear they are not private property. General Hutchinson sent me to Menou, and charged me to discover what national property of that kind was in the hands of the French. Hamilton, Lord Elgin’s secretary, had gone the same morning about an hour before with Colonel Turner of the Antiquarian Society about the Hieroglyphic Table. I showed my pass at the gates, and was admitted. The streets and public places were filled with the French troops, in desperate bad-humour. Our proposals were made known, and backed with a menace from the British general that he would break the capitulation if the proposals were not acceded to. The whole corps of sçavans and engineers beset Menou, and the poor old fellow, what with us and them, was completely hunted. We have been now at this work since Thursday the 11th, and I believe have succeeded. We found much more in their possession than was suspected or imagined. Pointers would not range better for game than we have done for statues, sarcophagi, maps, MSS., drawings, plans, charts, botany, stuffed birds, animals, dried fishes, &c. Savigny, who has been years in forming the beautiful collection of natural history for the republic, is in despair. Therefore we represented to General Hutchinson, that it would be the best plan to send him to England also, as the most proper person to take care of the collection, and to publish its description if necessary.”

No man, I suppose, who has passed beyond the frontiers of his own country, can fail to have experienced frequent depressions of spirit, during which he has probably repented him of his wandering habits. But Clarke was like a weathercock, now pointing to the east, now to the west. In the island of Zea, off the promontory of Sunium, he repented heartily of having undertaken the voyage to Greece. “Danger, fatigue, disease, filth, treachery, thirst, hunger, storms, rocks, assassins,--these,” he exclaims, “are the realities which a traveller in Greece meets with!” Anon, at Athens, he writes, “We have been here three days; we sailed into the port of the Piræus after sunset on the 28th. The little voyage from Cape Sunium to Athens is one of the most interesting I ever made. The height of the mountains brings the most distant objects into the view, and you are surrounded by beauty and grandeur. The sailors and pilots still give to every thing its ancient name, with only a little difference in the pronunciation. They show you as you sail along, Ægina and Salamis, Mount Hymettus and Athens, and Megara, and the mountains of Corinth. The picture is the same as it was in the earliest ages of Greece. The Acropolis rises to view as if it were in its most perfect state: the temples and buildings seem entire; for the eye, in the Saronic Gulf, does not distinguish the injuries which the buildings have suffered, and nature, of course, is the same now as she was in the days of Themistocles. I cannot tell you what sensations I felt: the successions were so rapid I knew not whether to laugh or to cry,--sometimes I did both.

“Our happiness is complete, we have forgotten all our disasters, and I have half a mind to blot out all I have written in the first part of this letter. We are in the most comfortable house imaginable, with a good widow and her daughter. You do not know Lusieri. He was my friend in Italy many years ago. Think what a joy to find him here, presiding over the troop of artists, architects, sculptors, and excavators that Lord Elgin has sent here to work for him. He is the most celebrated artist at present in the world. Pericles would have deified him. He attends us everywhere, and Pausanias himself would not have made a better cicerone.

“Athens exceeds all that ever has been written or painted from it. I know not how to give an idea of it; because, having never seen any thing like it, I must become more familiar with so much majesty before I can describe it. I am no longer to lament the voyage I lost with Lord Berwick; because it is exactly that which a man should see _last_ in his travels. It is even with joy I consider it is perhaps the end of all my admiration. We are lucky in the time of our being here. The popularity of the English name gives us access to many things which strangers before were prohibited from visiting, and the great excavations that are going on discover daily some hidden treasures. Rome is almost as insignificant in comparison with Athens as London with Rome; and one regrets the consciousness that no probable union of circumstances will ever again carry the effects of human labour to the degree of perfection they have attained here.”

No one after this will accuse Clarke of being deficient in enthusiasm; but this is not all. On reaching the summit of Parnassus, he bursts forth into expressions of admiration, which, if they were not justified by the sublime beauty of the scenes themselves, or by the historical glory with which they must be eternally associated, would be absurd. “It is necessary to forget all that has preceded--all the travels of my life--all I ever imagined--all I ever saw! Asia--Egypt--the Isles--Italy--the Alps--whatever you will! Greece surpasses all! Stupendous in its ruins! Awful in its mountains!--captivating in its vales--bewitching in its climate. Nothing ever equalled it--no pen can describe it--no pencil can portray it!

“I know not when we shall get to Constantinople. We are as yet only three days’ distance from Athens; and here we sit on the top of Parnassus, in a little sty, full of smoke, after wandering for a fortnight in Attica, Bœotia, and Phocis. We have been in every spot celebrated in ancient story--in fields of slaughter, and in groves of song. I shall grow old in telling you the wonders of this country. Marathon, Thebes, Platæa, Leuctra, Thespia, Mount Helicon, the grove of the Muses, the cave of Trophonius, Cheronea, Orchomene, Delphi, the Castalian fountain, Parnassus; we have paid our vows in all! But what is most remarkable, in Greece there is hardly a spot which hath been particularly dignified that is not also adorned by the most singular beauties of nature. Independently of its history, each particular object is interesting.”

From Athens they proceeded by land to Constantinople through ancient Thrace, by a route partly trodden by Pococke. After a short stay at this city, they directed their course homewards through Roumelia, Austria, Germany, and France, and arrived in England after an absence of upwards of three years. Cripps now returned for a short period to his family, and Clarke, who had by this time acquired an immense reputation, took up his residence at Cambridge, where, with very few intervals of absence, he remained nearly twenty years. He was very soon rejoined by his pupil, the completing of whose education, together with the arranging of his curiosities and antiquities, and the composition of his travels, fully occupied his leisure for some time. A statue of Ceres which our traveller had dug up, and sent home from Greece, was presented, on his return, to the university; in consequence of which the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon Clarke, and that of M.A. upon his companion.

In 1805 Dr. Clarke published a “Dissertation on the Sarcophagus in the British Museum,” which, though necessarily neglected by the public, is said to have given considerable satisfaction to the learned, and procured for its author many valuable acquaintances. Another and a very different subject employed his mind throughout a great part of the following year. This was no less a thing than matrimony; which, as soon as the idea got footing in his brain, occupied his ardent imagination to the exclusion of every thing else. His suit, however, was successful. The lady of his choice became his wife; and to increase this piece of good fortune, two livings, for he had entered into orders, were presented him by his friends, the one shortly before, and the other immediately after his marriage. He now occupied himself with lectures on mineralogy, which were delivered at the university to crowded audiences, and were a source of considerable profit. This, as he expected, led to his appointment as professor of mineralogy; and “thus,” says Mr. Otter, “were his most sanguine wishes crowned with success; and thus were his spirit and perseverance rewarded with one of the rarest and highest honours which the university could bestow.”

Dr. Clarke now began to think of turning the treasures he had picked up in his travels to account; he sold his MSS. to the Bodleian Library at Oxford for 1000_l._, and his Greek coins to Mr. Payne Knight for 100 guineas. The publication of his travels next followed, and produced him a clear sum of 6595_l._ In the year 1814 his old passion for travelling revived, and an expedition was projected into the Grecian Archipelago for the purpose of collecting antiquities, manuscripts, &c. But he was overruled by his friend, who probably believed that his constitution was now unequal to the fatigue which would be the inevitable attendant on such a mission. To this scheme he would appear to have been urged by the extravagant manner in which he had for some time lived; but a more practicable, or at least a more certain mode of recovering from the effects of this false step presented itself; which was no other than reducing his expenses, and living within his income. This he had the courage to undertake and execute; and from that day forward seems to have led the life of a sensible man. His passion now took a new turn, and he was wholly absorbed by chymistry. In September, 1816, he wrote as follows to a friend: “I sacrificed the whole month of August to chymistry. Oh how I did work! It was delightful play to me, and I stuck to it day and night. At last, having blown off both my eyebrows and eyelashes, and nearly blown out both my eyes, I ended with a bang that shook all the houses round my lecture-room. The Cambridge paper has told you the result of all this alchymy, for I have actually decomposed the earths, and obtained them in a metallic form.”

I adopt from Mr. Otter the following account of Clarke’s death. It was hastened, if not entirely caused, by continued high-wrought mental excitement. He was carried to town for advice by Sir William and Lady Rush, where he was attended by Sir Astley Cooper, Dr. Bailey, and Dr. Scudamore, but their efforts to save him were in vain; the rest of his life, about a fortnight, over which a veil will soon be drawn, was like a feverish dream after a day of strong excitement, when the same ideas chase each other through the mind in a perpetual round, and baffle every attempt to banish them. Nothing seemed to occupy his attention but the syllabus of his lectures, and the details of the operations he had just finished; nor could there exist to his friends a stronger proof that all control over his mind was gone, and that the ascendency of such thoughts at a season when the devotion so natural to him, and of late so strikingly exhibited under circumstances far less trying, would, in a sounder state, have been the prime, if not the only, mover of his soul. One lucid interval there was, in which, to judge from the subject and the manner of his conversation, he had the command of his thoughts, as well as a sense of his danger; for in the presence of Lieut. Chappel and Mr. Cripps, he pronounced a very pathetic eulogium on Mrs. Clarke, and recommended her earnestly to the care of those about him; but when the currents of his thoughts seemed running fast towards those pious contemplations on which they would naturally have rested, his mind suddenly relapsed into the power of its former occupants, from which it never more was free. At times, indeed, gleams of his former kindness and intelligence would mingle with the wildness of his delirium, in a manner the most striking and affecting; and then, even his incoherences, to use his own thoughts respecting another person who had finished his race shortly before him, was as the wreck of some beautiful decayed structure, when all its goodly ornaments and stately pillars fall in promiscuous ruin. He died on Saturday, the 9th of March, and was buried in Jesus College chapel on the 18th of the same month.

FRANCOIS LE VAILLANT.

Born 1753.--Died 1824.

In commencing the life of this traveller I experience some apprehension that the interest of the narrative may suffer in my hands; since his exploits, as Sallust observes of those of the Athenians, appear to acquire much of their importance from the peculiar eloquence with which they are described. The style of Le Vaillant, though regarded by many as declamatory and negligent, is in fact so graceful, natural, and full of vivacity,--his sentiments are so warm,--his ideas, whether right or wrong, so peculiarly his own, that, whether he desires to interest you in the fate of his friends or of his cattle, of his collections or of his cocks and hens, the result is invariably the same: he irresistibly inspires you with feelings like his own, and for the moment compels you, in spite of yourself, to adopt his views and opinions. I cannot, however, flatter myself with the hope of equal success. Things really trifling in themselves might, I am afraid, continue to appear so when dressed in my plain style; and it therefore only remains for me to select, to the best of my judgment, such actions and events as really deserve to be remembered, and must always, with whatever degree of simplicity they may be described, command a certain degree of attention. The scene of this writer’s adventures had in many instances all the charm of novelty when his travels first appeared. No European had preceded him in his route. He could form no conjecture respecting the nature of the objects with which the morrow was to bring him acquainted, and at every step experienced the

Novos decerpere flores.

In all the pleasures to be derived from pursuing an untrodden path, from penetrating into an unknown world; for such then was Africa, and such, in a great measure, it still continues--from beholding new species of birds and animals which his enthusiasm and perseverance were about to make known to mankind;--in all these pleasures, I say, he skilfully makes his readers his associates, and thus, apparently without effort, accomplishes the intention of the most consummate rhetorical art, the object of which is only to lead the imagination captive by the allurements of pleasure, or to urge it along by the keen sting of curiosity.

François le Vaillant was born in 1753, at Paramaribo, in Dutch Guiana, where his father, a rich merchant, originally from Metz, filled the office of consul. Even while a child the tastes and habits of his parents inspired him with a partiality for a wandering life, and for collections of objects of natural history, which quickly generated another passion, the passion for hunting; and this amusement, unphilosophical as it may seem, not only occupied his boyish days, in which man is cruel from thoughtlessness, but his riper and declining years, when suffering and calamity might have taught him to respect the lives even of the inferior animals.

His father, actuated by the love of science, or by the vanity of forming a collection, employed much of the leisure which he enjoyed in travelling through the less frequented parts of the colony, accompanied by his wife and son; and to this circumstance may be attributed Le Vaillant’s twofold passion for travelling and for natural history. The desire of possessing a cabinet of his own soon arose. Birds and beasts being as yet beyond his reach, he commenced with caterpillars, butterflies, and other insects; but his ambition increasing with his acquisitions, he at length armed himself with the Indian sarbacan and bow, and before he had reached his tenth year had slain innumerable birds.

In 1763 he proceeded with his parents to Europe, where every object which presented itself to his eye was new. They first landed in Holland, where the phlegmatic Dutchmen, who, like the Chinese, pique themselves upon being “slow and sure,” viewed with astonishment the pert and forward urchin, who, at ten years of age, began to babble of science, cabinets, and collections. From Holland, however, they soon removed to the more congenial soil of France. Here precocity, which too frequently generates hopes never destined to be fulfilled, has always been viewed with more complacency than in any other country in Europe; and accordingly our youthful traveller, whose vanity amply made up for his want of knowledge, was flattered and encouraged to his heart’s content. In this particular instance the flowers were succeeded by fruit. Being capable of existing in solitude, which is difficult in youth, but yet absolutely necessary to the acquisition of studious habits, he yielded to his natural inclination for the chase, and spent whole weeks in the forests of Lorrain and Germany, intently studying the manners of animals and birds. His education, meanwhile, was not in other respects neglected; but the books which occupied him most agreeably were voyages and travels, as his mind seems already to have turned towards that point from which he was to derive his fame.

In the course of the year 1777 some fortunate circumstance conducted him to Paris, where the collections and cabinets of learned and scientific men at first afforded him extraordinary delight; but ended, he says, by inspiring him with contempt, the richness of the treasures which they contained being equalled only by the confusion and absurdity observable in their arrangement. He discovered likewise in the current works on natural history, even in those of Buffon, so much exaggeration, and so many errors, notwithstanding the masterly eloquence with which those errors are clothed, that, convinced that no degree of genius could preserve from delusion the man who describes nature at second-hand, he at length determined to become a traveller before he became a natural historian, that he might observe in their native woods and deserts the animals which he wished to make known to the world. With these views, without communicating his plans to any person, he departed from Paris on the 17th of July, 1780, and proceeded to Holland.

Having visited the principal cities of the republic, and admired at Amsterdam the superb collection and aviary of M. Temminck and others, he obtained permission to proceed to the Cape of Good Hope in one of the ships of the Dutch East India Company, and set sail for that country on the 3d of December, 1780, the day before England declared war against the Dutch. Had this event taken place twenty-four hours sooner, the company, he observes, would not have allowed them to depart; in which case all his projects might have been frustrated. During the voyage the ship was cannonaded during several hours by a small English privateer, while the Dutch captain, rendered incapable of reflection by terror, never returned a single shot; and although exceedingly superior in men and metal to the enemy, would undoubtedly have suffered himself to be taken prisoner, had not another Dutch ship-of-war hove in sight, and put to flight the audacious Englishman. This was the only incident worthy of mention which occurred to dissipate the _ennui_ of their long voyage; and they arrived at Cape Town three months and ten days after their departure from the Texel.

Le Vaillant, who had taken care to provide himself previous to his departure from Amsterdam with numerous letters of recommendation, was received with remarkable attention by several individuals of distinction at the Cape. His design of exploring the remoter districts of the colony and the adjacent countries fortunately excited no jealousy or suspicion in their minds, and therefore, instead of labouring, as petty colonial governments too frequently do, to obstruct the interests of science, they evinced a disposition to favour the views of the traveller, entertained him with profuse hospitality during the many months which the preparations for his journey required him to remain among them, and, which to him was still more important, exerted their influence and authority to facilitate his movements towards the countries of the interior. So agreeable a reception could not, of course, fail to produce its effect upon the mind of the traveller. It quite melted away his affected misanthropy. He found himself in good-humour with mankind, and, as if benevolence and philanthropy were the peculiar attributes of the natives of Holland, observes, that this species of politeness was what he had reckoned upon, for that he knew he had to deal with Dutchmen!

His remarks upon Cape Town, now no longer in the possession of the Dutch, are sufficiently curious, as they enable us to contrast its appearance fifty years ago with that which it at present wears under English government. Though a large proportion of the houses were spacious and handsome, the streets, in spite of their great breadth, appeared disagreeable even to a Frenchman, on account of the badness of the pavement, and the stench which everywhere offended the nostrils, arising from the heads, feet, and intestines of slaughtered animals which the butchers of the company were in the habit of casting forth in heaps before their doors, and which, with more than Ottomite negligence, the authorities allowed to putrefy upon the spot. The effluvia proceeding from these abominations Le Vaillant with reason regarded as one of the active causes of those epidemics which usually prevailed in the city during those seasons in which the violent south-east wind had not blown. While this cleansing wind was performing its operations, the streets were almost rendered impassable. The hurricane, precipitating from the mountains dense masses of vapour, raged for several days with indescribable impetuosity, overthrowing every thing in its course, and filling all places, even to the closets, trunks, and drawers, with dust. Trees and plants were frequently torn up by the roots; and well-planted gardens were rendered in the course of twenty-four hours as bare and naked as a desert.

Le Vaillant found the native colonists of the Cape handsome and well formed, particularly the women; but, although they studied with perseverance the important science of dress, they were still very far, in his opinion, from the ease and elegance of the ladies of France; a result which he in a great measure attributes to the practice of employing slaves as wet-nurses, and of otherwise living with them in habits of great familiarity. Slavery under any form is a thing to be abhorred; but our traveller here seems to exaggerate its deformities. Gracefulness, taste, decorum, which should, perhaps, be numbered among the virtues in a well-regulated state, are things with which slavery is by no means incompatible. The most polished nation of antiquity, which every person but a Frenchman will allow to have at least equalled the Parisians in refinement, constantly employed domestic slaves, and lived with them on terms of considerable familiarity. But ignorance and refinement are necessarily repugnant to each other; and in general the Dutch inhabitants of the Cape were, according to Le Vaillant, remarkable for their ignorance, which, without the aid of slavery, would sufficiently account for the absence of graceful and elegant manners.

Strangers, however, arriving at the Cape were almost invariably received with great hospitality, more particularly the English, who were admired for their generosity, as much as the French, for their sordid avarice and egotism, were despised and hated. Le Vaillant, in fact, observes that he has frequently heard colonists declare they would prefer being conquered by the English to their owing their safety to a nation whom they regarded with such aversion as the French; and the French troops which shortly afterward arrived in the colony, spreading around them vice and profligacy like a pestilence, debauching the wives and daughters of those who hospitably received them into their houses, and sowing dissension and eternal regrets in the bosoms of a hundred families, fully justified this deep-rooted hatred. The great number of persons in France who from selfish motives remain unmarried, and speculate upon the gratification of their feeble passions at the expense of the weak-minded and the miserable, must always render the nation an object of aversion among a remote people like the Dutch colonists of the Cape, whose ignorant simplicity necessarily exposes them to the shame of suffering by such immorality.

But if the English were so much the objects of admiration to the people, their numerous and powerful fleets, which have for centuries exercised an undisputed omnipotence on the ocean, rendered them no less terrible to the authorities, who, to secure the company’s vessels from their dreaded cannon, commanded them to be removed from Table Bay to that of Saldanha, where, it was hoped, their chances of escape would be more numerous. On board of one of these our traveller embarked on the 10th of May, and next morning arrived safely in the Bay of Saldanha, happy that the dreaded English flag had not encountered them on their passage.

In the waters of this bay, which was then but seldom visited, great numbers of whales were continually seen sporting about; and Le Vaillant, whose hunting propensities were immediately awakened by the sight of a wild animal, frequently amused himself with firing at this new species of game. He could never perceive, however, that his balls produced the least effect upon them. But in Mutton Island, situated in the entrance of the bay, his fowlingpiece was more fortunate; for, from the prodigious number of rabbits with which that isle abounded, he found it easy on all occasions to kill as many as he pleased. In fact, this little isle became the warren of the whole fleet.

Various species of game abounded in the neighbourhood, among which the principal were the partridge and the hare, and that small kind of gazelle denominated steen-bock by the colonists. The panther, too, following in the track of his prey, was found in great numbers in this district. A few days after his arrival Le Vaillant was invited by the commandant to join him in a hunting-party. Their chase was unsuccessful: they killed nothing. Towards the close of the day, as if fate had decreed that his courage should at once be put to the proof, Le Vaillant found himself separated from his companion; and continuing as he proceeded to fire at intervals, in the hope of arousing the game, he started a small gazelle, which his dog immediately pursued. The gazelle was quickly out of sight, but the dog, which still seemed to be upon his track, stopped on the skirts of a large thicket, and began to bark. Le Vaillant, who had now no doubt that the game had taken refuge there, hastened to the spot with all the eagerness of a sportsman. His presence encouraged the dog, and he every moment expected to see the gazelle appear; but at length, growing impatient, he entered into the thicket, beating the bushes aside with his fowlingpiece. It is difficult, however, to describe the terror and confusion he experienced when, instead of a timid and feeble gazelle, he saw before him a tremendous panther, whose glaring eyes were fixed upon him, while its outstretched neck, gaping jaws, and low, hollow growl seemed to announce its intention of springing. He regarded himself as lost. But the calm courage of his dog saved his life. It kept the animal at bay, hesitating between rage and fear, until the traveller had retreated out of the thicket. He then made towards the house of the commandant with all possible speed, frequently looking behind him as he ran.

Another kind of terror shortly after seized upon him at sea. He was sitting at supper with the captain and the other officers, when a sudden strange motion was observed in the ship. Every person immediately ran on deck. The whole crew were alarmed. Some imagined they had run upon their anchors, and were beating against the rocks; others accounted for the shock in a different manner; but, perceiving from the position of the other ships that they were still exactly where they had been before, no one could conjecture the cause of what had happened, and their alarm was redoubled. Presently, however, upon more careful observation, a whale was discovered entangled by the tail, between the ship’s cables, and making furious efforts to disengage itself. This was the cause of the singular motion they had felt. All hands now rushed with harpoons into the boat; but the obscurity of the night retarding their movements, the whale, just as they were ready to attack it, succeeded in disentangling its tail, and escaped.

In the entrance to Saldanha Bay there is a second small island, to which the colonists have given the name of the Marmotte. Upon this sequestered spot the captain of a Danish vessel, as our traveller had learned from tradition, having been long detained in the bay by contrary winds, had died there, and been buried by his crew. Le Vaillant now conceived the desire of visiting his grave. In sailing by this lonely rock, in the passage to and from Mutton Island, he had invariably been struck by a dull but startling sound, proceeding from the isle. He mentioned the circumstance to the captain. The good-natured navigator, anxious to oblige his guest, and perhaps himself desirous of beholding the Dane’s grave, replied, that if his wishes pointed that way they should immediately be gratified.

Next morning, accordingly, they proceeded towards the island. In proportion as they advanced, the noise, increasing in loudness, more and more excited their curiosity; and the sound of the waves, which broke with great violence against the rocks, contributed not a little to swell the deep murmur, the cause of which no one could conjecture. They landed at length amid spray and foam, and, clambering up the cliffs, succeeded with much difficulty in reaching the summit. Here they beheld a sight such, in the opinion of our traveller, as no mortal ever beheld before. There arose in a moment from the surface of the earth an impenetrable cloud, which formed, at the height of forty feet above their heads, a prodigious canopy, or rather sky, of birds of every kind and colour. “Cormorants, sea-swallows, pelicans,--in one word,” says he, “all the winged creatures of Southern Africa were collected, I verily believe, in that spot. The screams of so enormous a multitude of birds mingling together formed an infernal species of music, which seemed to rend the ear with its piercing notes.

“The alarm,” he adds, “was so much the greater, among these innumerable legions of birds, in that it was the females with whom we had principally to deal, it being the season of nesting. They had therefore their nests, their eggs, their young ones to defend, and were as fierce as so many harpies. They deafened us with their cries. They stooped upon the wing, and in darting past us, brushed our faces. It was in vain that we fired our pieces; nothing could frighten away this living cloud. We could scarcely take a single step without crushing some eggs or young birds: the earth was covered by them.”

They found the caverns and hollows of the rocks inhabited by seals and sea-lions, of the latter of which they killed one specimen of enormous size. The various creeks of the island afforded a retreat to the manchot, a species of penguin, two feet in height, the wings of which, being entirely devoid of feathers, are only used in swimming. On land they hang down by the side of the body in a negligent manner, and communicate to the appearance and air of the bird something peculiarly sinister and funereal. These dismal-looking birds crowded every part of the island, but were nowhere so numerous as about the Dane’s tomb, around which they clustered as if to defend it from violation, and with their startling, melancholy cry, which mingled with the roar of the seal and the sea-lion, gave an air of sadness to the scene which deeply affected the soul. In itself the tomb was rude and simple,--a single block of stone, without name or inscription.

During the whole of his stay on this part of the coast Le Vaillant was actively employed in adding to his collection, which, with his money, clothes, and papers, continued on board the Middleburg, the principal ship on the station. He had now been three months in this neighbourhood, which he had traversed in every direction. He still continued, however, to roam about with his dog and gun in search of birds and animals; but one day, on approaching the shore, the roaring of cannon struck his ear. He at first supposed it might be some _fête_ given on board the ships, and hastened his march as much as possible, in the hope of sharing in the rejoicings. Upon his reaching the downs overlooking the bay, a very different spectacle presented itself. The Middleburg had just been blown up, and its burning fragments still filled the air, or lay widely scattered upon the sea! Here, then, was the end of all his hopes; for not only the results of his labours, but his fortune, the basis upon which all his projects were founded, was now destroyed.

The cause of this calamity was soon discovered. The English fleet, having obtained intelligence of the retreat of the Dutch, had burst upon them so suddenly, that the terrified commanders had all, with the exception of Vangenep, the commander of the Middleburg, been taken unawares, and prevented from executing the orders they had received, rather to run aground, sink, or blow up their ships, than suffer them to fall into the hands of the enemy. Instead of this, they all abandoned their vessels at the first appearance of the English, the sailors, notwithstanding their apprehensions of the enemy, carrying away with them every thing they could bring on shore, though the desire to escape beyond reach of the English cannon quickly compelled them to cast their burdens on the ground. Everywhere the roads and paths were crowded with fugitives, and covered with the plunder which they had abandoned on the way. Among the rest, an English prisoner was flying from the shore. Le Vaillant met him, and having, as well as he could, questioned him in English respecting the horrible catastrophe, was expecting an answer, when a cannon-ball carried off his head, and the answer with it. A large dog, which was running about wild and trembling, apparently in search of his master, was next moment killed by another ball; and Le Vaillant, apprehensive that the third might reach himself, immediately fled over the downs, and ensconced himself behind an eminence.

His position at this moment, it must be confessed, was sufficiently calamitous. To repair to the Cape, there to petition among a crowd of adventurers and unfortunates for pecuniary aid, was a step he could ill brook; yet, unless he submitted to this humiliation, what must be his fate? His family, his friends, his adopted country were two thousand leagues distant. His whole resources now consisted in his fowlingpiece, the clothes he then wore, and ten ducats. His misfortunes presented themselves to his mind in all their horrors, and he burst into tears,--a trait of weakness for which he might have pleaded the example of Homer’s and Virgil’s poetical heroes. An honest colonist, however, to whose house he repaired in this extremity, received him with a frank hospitality, which in some degree dissipated his chagrin; and he next day returned, though not without melancholy, to the first elements of his collection.

His misfortunes were soon known at the Cape, and in a few days after this occurrence he was again placed, by the friendship of M. Boers, the fiscal, in a condition to act as if nothing had happened. He therefore directed his attention to the preparations required by his projected journey into the interior; and these, from the style in which he designed to travel, were numerous and considerable. He caused to be constructed two large four-wheeled wagons, covered above with double canvass, in one of which were placed five large packing-cases, which exactly filled the bottom of the vehicle, and could be opened without being removed. Over these was spread a mattress, on which he might occasionally sleep; and on this mattress, which during the day was rolled up in the back of the wagon, he placed the cabinet fitted up with drawers, in which he intended to preserve his insects. The other cases were filled with powder, lead for casting balls, tobacco, hardware, brandy, and toys. He had sixteen fowlingpieces, one of which, calculated for shooting elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami, carried a quarter of a pound ball. Besides these he had several pairs of double-barrelled pistols, a scimitar, and a dagger.

The second wagon carried his kitchen utensils, which, as he was rather addicted to luxurious eating, were numerous for a traveller: a gridiron, a frying-pan, two kettles, a caldron, tea-kettles, tea-pots, coffee-pots, basins, plates, dishes, &c. of porcelain. To supply these he laid in a large store of white sugar, coffee, tea, chocolate, and sugar-candy. His brandy and tobacco, to the use of which he was not at all addicted, were designed to purchase friends among the natives, and to keep his Hottentot attendants in good-humour. In addition to his wagons he had a great and a small tent, and numerous other conveniences, which he describes with great complacency. His train consisted of five Hottentots, nine dogs, and thirty oxen; but both his servants and his cattle were afterward considerably increased.

Le Vaillant judged rightly, that on proceeding on such an expedition it would be imprudent to have any associate of equal rank. Few men are calculated by nature to become travellers, though every person whose constitution will endure fatigue may perform a journey; but there are still fewer who are gifted with those happy qualities which render men desirable companions in an undertaking whence fame is expected to be derived. Some, from feebleness of purpose, desert you almost at the outset, and, to conceal their own pusillanimity, represent you in their coteries as feeble, or selfish, or impracticable; others, more mischievous still, proceed so far that they cannot return, but, clinging to your skirts, contrive on every trying occasion to impede your movements, or cast a damp upon your energies; while a third class, too brave to feel alarm, too consistent to shrink from an enterprise begun, too honest to misrepresent you, will yet thwart your designs through obstinacy, or through the pardonable but fatal desire to follow a plan of their own. For these reasons our traveller, though solicited by many who would have gladly borne him company, steadily refused to admit of an associate, and determined to proceed on his journey alone.