348 Miscellaneous. 



as his boasted knowledge of the different native languages should 

 have enabled him to do, he could hardly speak half-a-dozen words 

 correctly, and was glad to avail himself of the services of Curtis, then 

 interpreter to Capt. Chevalier, who furnished him with the numerals 

 of the Kioo and other tribes to the north-west which figure in his 

 Appendix ; and I was the medium of communication with those 

 emigrants speaking the Mipongwe. As to M. Du Chaillu's qualifi- 

 cations in this latter language, they are of the most infinitesimal 

 kind, as I can assert with confidence, having a competent knowledge 

 of it myself ; and he abundantly proves his ignorance when employ- 

 ing any Mipongwe words, nearly all of which are wrong. His Mi- 

 pongwe numerals are totally incorrect. He has even less knowledge 

 of the dialects of the neighbouring tribes. As to his identification 

 of individuals of thirty-eight different tribes on board the 'Phoenix,' 

 nothing of the kind occurred ; and his information must have been 

 obtained from Capt. Chevalier, or the French delegue. 



" In his engraving, the horns of ' Niare ' are simply a V impossible : 

 this animal is certainly the ' bush cow' of Dr. Gray, the native name 

 for the animal (Nyare-iga) having literally that signification. 



" Dr. Gray is also correct in his surmise that the specimens were 

 not prepared on the spot. I saw many of them in the ' rough ; ' 

 they were prepared in New York, — the operator finding them in 

 such a bad state as to cause him to say that he would not undertake 

 the task again for 100 dollars per specimen. 



" With regard to the engravings which M. Du Chaillu alleges to 

 have been prepared, with a few exceptions, from his own sketches, 

 how does it happen that he had no sketches before leaving here, 

 and actually told me that he could not sketch ? 



" I think I have sufficiently shown that M. Du Chaillu has been 

 guilty of many incorrect statements ; in fact, his work contains 

 nearly as many errors and inaccuracies as there are paragraphs. It 

 is, moreover, teeming with vanity ; and, taking it as a whole, it is 

 hard to say whether the author, in his attempt to impose upon, and, 

 in fact, humbug the scientific world, displays most mendacity or 

 ignorance. I will proceed, with many apologies for so far trespass- 

 ing on your space, to give an instance of downright untruthfulness 

 which occurs in the concluding paragraphs of the book. M. Du 

 Chaillu there states that, after languishing for four months at 

 Camma, waiting for a ship, his sight was at length gladdened by the 

 appearance of a vessel which came to an anchor off the mouth of the 

 Fernan Vas, being sent by his friends in Gaboon, the captain having 

 orders to ascertain how he came by his death. Now, not only had 

 his death never been reported, — and if it had, he was far too insig- 

 nificant for any one to send a vessel to inquire into the manner of 

 it, — but he had actually only left Gaboon some fifteen or twenty 

 days previously, after having made arrangements with the very same 

 captain to follow him to ship his ebony, &c. for America ; and the 

 four months were actually spent in Gaboon and the neighbourhood, 

 two of them with a member of the American mission, who proceeds 

 to England by this same mail en route to America, and who can 



