HARRIS, William Cornwallis.

Narrative of an expedition into southern Africa, during the years 1836, and 1837, from the Cape of Good Hope, through the territories of the chief Moselekatse, to the tropic of Capricorn, with a sketch of the recent emigration of the border colonists, and a zoological appendix.

Bombay, printed at the American Mission Press, 1838. 8vo (215 x 140 mm), pp. xviii, 406, with four plates and a folding map (with routes shown in colour); occasional light spotting; contemporary half red roan, with the binder’s ticket of J. J. Malvery of Bombay; worn and rubbed; preserved in a modern red morocco-backed cloth box; the Hosken copy, with bookplate. First edition, first issue, with the four plates all signed ‘on stone by W. C. Harris’ (in subsequent issues the plates were lithographed in London by Dean & Munday). Like the Abbey copy the second and fourth plates in the present copy are without captions; SAB notes a copy in which all four apparently have captions.‘In 1836 Harris was invalided to the Cape [from India] for two years by a medical board. South Africa at that time was attracting some notice, owing to the recent exodus of the Dutch colonists, and their early conflicts with the Zulu hordes of Dingaan. On the voyage to the Cape, Harris, who from a very early age had, his friends said, “been afflicted with shooting-madness”, made the acquaintance of Richard Williamson, of the Bombay civil establishment, a noted shikary, and the two arranged an expedition into the interior in quest of big game . . . . Harris and his friend started by ox-wagon from Algoa Bay, by way of Somerset and the Orange River, meeting with large game in disricts long since cleared, and travelled in a north-easterly direction until they reached the kraals of the famous Matabele chief Moselikatze. That potentate proved friendly, and permitted the travellers to return to the colony by a new and previously closed route’ (DNB). ‘Harris journeyed to the Meritsane River where he encountered a herd of quaggas and brindled “gnoos” he estimated at 15,000 head. He bagged eland and was attacked by lion in the region. Crossing the Mariqua River, he hunted ostrich and white rhinoceros. Entering the Cashan Mountains, he collected elephant, then proceeded to the Limpopo Valley where he hunted buffalo and hippopotamus, with additional sport after giraffe, black rhinoceros, sable, and lion. Harris’ work is valuable as it presents a detailed picture of the South African game fields prior to the growing pressure of civilization’ (Czech p. 71). The London editions which appeared from 1839 were entitled The wild sports of Southern Africa; being the narrative of an expedition from the Cape of Good Hope.Abbey 333; Hosken p. 93; Kennedy, Africana p. 124; Mendelssohn I p. 686 (a long note); SAB II p. 506.

• GBP 1,750.00 > Andere Währungen
• Bestellnummer: T1582

• Antiquariat: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)