DONVILLE^S FICTITIOUS TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 649 



in the country had ever heard him spoken of, although the period re- 

 ferred to was yet recent. While speaking of this journey one evening 

 at the house of M. Koberge, the apothecary, where all the best French 

 society of Buenos Ayres were accustomed to meet, he was requested to 

 set down on a sheet of paper the chief points of the Argentine republic 

 over which he must have passed. He made the attempt, but unfor- 

 tunately put that west which should have been east, and north what 

 should have been south, and so of the rest. These errors appeared 

 extraordinary in a naturalist and a geographer. Sometime before I had 

 myself received a visit from M. Donville, who was presented to me by 

 M. Dutillant, formerly paymaster in the Spanish army, and then settled 

 at Buenos Ayres. We naturally spoke of his travels, and I learned from 

 him that he had followed the footsteps of Humboldt from the Orinoco to 

 the Amazons. His memory did not serve him well ; the names of the 

 Atures, the Maypures, Cassiaquare, &c. so familiar to every one who 

 has read the travels of M. de Humboldt, appeared to be quite unknown 

 to him, and I was repeatedly obliged in the course of the conversation 

 to relieve his hesitation by pronouncing the name myself. 



" Several Frenchmen, who arrived by land from Monte- Video, 

 brought us some fresh intelligence respecting M. Donville. He had 

 landed there about the middle of October, from on board the brig Jules, 

 Capt. Decambas, which had sailed from Havre on the 7th of August, 

 1826. His behaviour during the passage was any thing but praise- 

 worthy. He complained incessantly of the mesquinerie with which they 

 treated a man like him, who was accustonled to sail in ships of war, and 

 reproached the captain severely for having left in the ship's hold among 

 the goods of the cargo a case containing his instruments, which pre- 

 vented him, he said, from making his astronomical observations. On 

 their arrival at Monte Video, the effects of the passengers were examined 

 at the custom-house; the precious case was opened, and instead of 

 scientific instruments, presented only a tea-service of china, and several 

 other articles of the same description in the worst possible condition. 

 M. Donville, on landing, went to the hotel of the Four Nations, Fonda 

 di las Cuatro Maciones, kept by a Frenchman of the name of Hien- 

 monnet. The latter, although not a bad man at bottom, was somewhat 

 intractable, and thinking one day that his guest was preparing to leave 

 him a little too suddenly, pushed his unpoliteness so far as to detain 

 him against his will. The affair was settled, however, by M. Canaillon, 

 the French Vice-consul at Monte Video ; and it was soon after this that 

 our traveller addressed himself, in the name of the sciences, to the Bra- 

 zilian Admiral, Pinto Guadez, to be carried on board a ship of war to 

 Buenos Ayres. 



" It is needless to say what effect this intelligence produced on the 

 minds of the good people of Buenos Ayres. M. Donville made a show 

 at first of applying himself to scientific researches, which he soon aban- 

 doned for a more profitable sort of industry. He hired a small shop in 

 the street of the Cathedral, No. 129, which he soon afterwards left to 

 go the street La Piedad, No. 91, where, under the commercial firm of 

 Donvillle and Laboissiere, he began to sell books, paper, perfumery, 

 squibs, crackers, and other articles in great variety. The name La- 

 boissiere was that of a woman of an extraordinary tournure, and of an 

 age approaching maturity, who accompanied M. Donville. It was she 

 who usually kept the shop, her partner occupying himself chiefly with 



