PERSEVERANCE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 27 



brated Temininck, 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. 

 The 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 Fish Eiver. He ascended one of the 

 branches of this stream to the frontier of the 

 Gouaquois and Caffres, into whose country he 



