The first volume of Le Vaillant’s Travels, newly translated into English, was published by the Van Riebeeck Society as Travels into the interior of Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, Vol I, in 2007 (VRS Vol II-38). This first volume is taken up with an account of his journey eastwards to Kok’s Kraal, on the western bank of the Great Fish River where he remained between October and December 1782. It was a lavishly illustrated account of a hunting expedition and a highly critical account of Dutch colonialism. The second volume of the two, also newly translated into English, is now published by HiPSA as Travels into the interior of Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, Vol II. This volume is very different from the first, being far more a description of the indigenous peoples whom he encountered at Kok’s Kraal. In this way, Le Vaillant speaks to the intellectual climate of Europe, feeding the Enlightenment reader’s hunger for the classification of knowledge across a broad spectrum of human activity. But the intellectual climate of the eighteenth century was complex, for, alongside the cult of reason, it also celebrated the unrestrained expression of emotion and the lyrical description of nature. Here again Le Vaillant provides his readers with the intriguing material they sought. In doing so he claims to be giving a truthful description of peoples and places. Yet, the authenticity of one whole episode in his narrative, his expedition across the Great Fish River, is profoundly suspect. It is equally unlikely that Le Vaillant wrote the final text of his narrative, alone, for it is full of the wit and indirect allusions that characterized good style in the Parisian salons, of which Le Vaillant had little knowledge. Overall, it is a complex and fascinating story, written by a complex and fascinating man.