26 MEMOIR OF LE VAILLANT. 



sieur Le Yaillant was tlie first that made the giraffe 

 known in France, the descriptions of which before 

 his time were very imperfect. The one which 

 belonged to the collection of the king was brought 

 by him from Africa. To him also his countrymen 

 were indebted for the discovery of a great number 

 of mammiferous animals, insects, and particularly 

 new species of birds. He was likewise the first 

 European writer that took notice of that singular 

 protuberance or deformity, a tergo, peculiar to some 

 of the African hordes, of which a specimen was 

 afterwards exhibited in Europe in the celebrated 

 Hottentot Yenus. 



The personal appearance and characteristic habits 

 of some of these tribes are very graphically described 

 by our author. Speaking of the Hottentots, he says, 

 " A physiognomist or modern wit would assign to 

 the Hottentot, in the scale of being, a place between 

 a man and the ouran-outang. I cannot, however, 

 consent to this systematic arrangement ; the quali- 

 ties which I esteem in him will never suffer him to 

 be so far degraded; and I have found his figure 

 sufficiently beautiful, because I have experienced 

 the goodness of his heart. It must indeed be 

 allowed that there is in his features something 

 peculiar, which in a certain degree separates him 

 from the generality of mankind. His cheek-bones 

 are exceedingly prominent, so that his fa/?e beiug 

 very broad in that part, and the jaw-bones extremely 

 narrow, his visage continues still decreasing, even 

 to t&e point of the chin. This configuration git** 



