Depiction of Le Vaillant's camp at Pampoen-Kraal, where, according to his account, he and his party repaired their wagons and carriages, and dried their goods, which had become wet during the course of their travels. (In the engraving, however, it appears that Africans do much of the work for them.) "The hill of Pampoen-Kraal, . . . ," Le Vaillant wrote, "pleased me much." As he then recalled, "Nor far from my tent [right] stood a small eminence, crowned by a thicket of thirty or thirty-five feet in diameter. The trees and shrubs of which it was composed, in growing had so interwoven their branches, that the whole appeared as one very thick and bushy body. Having imagined that I might convert it into a little palace, I ordered a path to be traced out to its centre, and the branches to be lopped off on each side to the height of a man, so as to afford an easy passage. In the middle of the thicket, by the force of labour and employing the hatchet, we were able to cut out two chambers perfectly square; in one of which I placed my table and chair; this was my study. The second I ornamented with my kitchen utensils: but this did not prevent me from using it at the same time as a dining room. These two apartments, naturally covered with branches and leaves impenetrably thick, afforded me a delightful and cool retreat, when harassed and covered with sweat and dust, after my hunted excursion in the morning, I retired from the heat of the day, and the scorching rays of the sun. (See the English translation of Le Vaillant, Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa [London: Printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster-Row, 1796], vol. 1, p. 164-165.), Fold-out plate in François Le Vaillant's Voyage de Monsieur Le Vaillant dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique par le Cap de Bonne-Espérance: dans les Années 1780, 81, 82, 83, 84 & 85 (A Paris: Chez Leroy, Libraire, rue Saint-Jacques; vis-à-vis celle de la Parcheminerie, no. 15, M.DCC.LXXXX [1790]), vol. 1, p. 166., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Date
[1790]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare U Afri Leva 1790 9861.O v 1 p 166, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2922
