26 
MEMOIR OF LE VAILLANT. 
sieur Le Vaillant was the 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 Venus. 
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 modem 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 face being 
very broad in that part, and the jaw-bones extremely 
narrow, his visage continues still decreasing, even 
to the point of the chin. This configuration gives 
