HOW I CROSSED AFRICA. FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE INDIAN OCEAN THROUGH UNKNOWN COUNTRIES; DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT ZAMBESI AFFLUENTS, &c. (2 VOLUMES, COMPLETE)
Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1881. First American Edition. Leather-bound. Octavos. 21cm. Smoothalf calf over brown, stone marbled boards, double-ruled in blind. Dark red feather pattern marbling to endpapers, and all edges. Red and black leather spine titles and volume labels on Vol. I, lacking on Vol.II. Rubbing to extremities, and frayiing and small leather chip missing at top spinecap of Volume II. Translated by A. Elwes. 14 of the 15 Maps called for (1 folding), 2 folding facsimiles, and 132 illustrations. Volume I LACKS folding map of Tropical South Africa, called for to be inside cover pocket, which is also not present. Volume I xxx + 377, Contents clean. Many full page and in-text engravings. Volume II, vii + 388, and contains facsimiles of pages of diary, books of calculation, and album (the Watershed in Cangala). Also included are tables of hypsometrical and meteorological observations, diurnal oscillations of the barometer; a Brief Vocabulary of the Four Principal Languages Spoken Between Parallels 12 and 28 South, from Coast to Coast, with English Equivalents, and an Index. Good Plus. Item #82995
In 1877, Pinto. a Portuguese explorer and administrator and naval captains Capelo and Ivens were sent by the Portuguese government to explore the unknown tributaries of the Zambesi and inland Central Africa. They left Benguela in November. Soon after their departure, however, they parted company, Capello and Ivens turning northward whilst Serpa Pinto continued eastward. He crossed the Cuando (Kwando) river in June 1878 and in August reached Lealui, the Barotse capital on the Zambezi. There he received assistance from the missionary Franois Coillard, enabling him to continue his journey along the Zambezi to the Victoria Falls. He then turned south and arrived at Pretoria in northern South Africa on February 12, 1879. Serpa Pinto was the fourth explorer to cross Africa from west to east, and the first to lay down a reasonably accurate route between Biz (in present-day Angola) and Lealui. In 1881 the Royal Geographical Society awarded him their Founder's Medal, 'for his journey across Africa, during which he explored five hundred miles of new country' and only the fourth European explorer to cross Africa from west to east. His journey started in Benguella, Portuguese Angola, in November of 1877, and ended in Durban, South Africa in the spring of 1878." (from an auction record" Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 2014)). In the chapter entitled "Among the Ganguellas" the author recounts happening upon "a gang of female slaves" and their three enslavers. He detained the slaveowners and told the women they were free now, and could go wherever they pleased. "I assured them they had nothing more to fear from their guards...to my astonishment they one and all declared that they did not desire my protection, but wished to continue their course, which I had interrupted..." Book bears the names of two former owners. The first, William E. Leonard, and the second, Harry Wells Langworthy,whose rubber stamped impression appears on both front free endpapers and title pages. Mr. Langworthy was an historian of central Africa, whose publications included *Zambia before 1890*, the edited *Letters of Charles Domingo*, and numerous other works on Malawian and Zambian history.
Price: $250.00