Explorations in South -West Africa. – Baines, Thomas

Being and Account of a Journey in the Years 1861 and 1862 from Walvisch Bay, on the Western Coast, to Lake Ngami and the Victoria Falls.

Original green cloth binding with gilt titles to the spine and embossed boards. xiv +535 pp. 8vo. Brown coated end papers. The front pastedown bearing the bookplate of Lady Florence Phillips, wife of Sir Lionel Phillips, mining magnate and politician. Their home was the Vergelegen Estate in Somerset West. Some bumping to the boards but still a very good copy. All maps and plates present, numerous uncut pages. An interesting pagination irregularity appears in all first editions: the publishers inserted a block of additional pages between pp. 457 and 458, numbered in brackets as [390–457]. This brings the actual total to 603 pages. In the preface, Baines’s father explains that the publishers received extra manuscript material after the final section had already been set in type, making it necessary to insert this new text, which now constitutes Chapter XV. The journey was started on March 20, 1861, and the author was joined by his fellow-traveller, Mr. J. Chapman, on the 20th of July. The volume contains an interesting account of hunting and exploration in the country of the Namaquas and Damaras, and the illustrations are very spirited ; there is a good description of the flora and fauna of the country, together with an account of the habits of the natives. It is stated that Livingstone, who had travelled over some of these regions, was often indistinctly under-stood by the natives, and that he made errors in consequence, the natives themselves averring that Scotchmen, however perfectly they may understand the language of the country, invariably speak it with an idiom that renders them more or less unintelligible.” (Mendelssohn, South African Bibliography, 1957, vol.1, pp 69-70)

Publisher: Longman, Green
Date Published: 1864
Publication Place: London