mo 
SOUTHERN COAST. 
fancy of his readers. This " petite Jbiblesse," as 
M. de la Richarderie calls it, cannot, it is said, af- 
fect the general value and authenticity of his narra- 
tive. In consequence, however, of the " little 
" weakness' ' now alluded to, M. Vaillant's ac» 
count of this country cannot be compared, in point 
of authenticity, to that of Mr Barrow ; and, as the 
charm of his style could not be preserved in a short 
analysis, there seems no room for departing, in his 
case, from the plan which we have proposed to fol- 
low in that of his predecessors. 
It is certain that Vaillant made important addi- 
tions to African ornithology. He brought home 
also to Paris the skin of the Giraffe, or Cameloparda- 
lis, a rare species, which, till then, had scarcely 
come under modern observation. He seems to 
have first ascertained, that what has been called 
the apron of the Hottentot females, is merely the 
prolongation of a particular membrane, which he 
supposes to be artificially produced ; but Mr Bar- 
row seems to have ascertained it to be a natural 
excrescence. 
In 1797> the territory belonging to the colony, 
as far as the Orange river, was traversed by Mr 
Barrow. Few gentlemen have possessed, in so 
eminent a degree, all the most important requisites 
of a traveller. The care and accuracy with which 
his observations are made \ his attention to study 
