A NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS IN NORTHERN AFRICA IN THE YEARS 1818,19 AND 20

With a chart of the routes and a variety of coloured plates.

First edition: xii, 383 pages, folding engraving map as frontispiece - Map of a Route through the Regency of Tripoli and Kingdom of Fezzan, strengthened on the back in the corner with archival tape, off-setting of the map on the title page, 17 chromolithographic plates drawn by Lyon, half brown calf with marbled boards, titled gilt with gilt decoration on the spine, sprinkled edges, bookplates on the front endpapers, a very good copy.

George Francis Lyon (1795 - 8 October 1832) was a British naval officer notable as a rare combination of Arctic and African explorer. In 1818, he was sent along with Joseph Ritchie by Sir John Barrow to find the course of the Niger River and the location of Timbuktu. The expedition was underfunded, lacked support and because the ideas of John Barrow departed from Tripoli and thus had to cross the Sahara as part of their journey. A year later, due to much officialdom they had only got as far as Murzuk where they both fell ill. Ritchie never recovered and died there, but Lyon survived and travelled a little further around the region. Exactly a year to the day he left, he arrived back in Tripoli, the expedition was a failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Francis_Lyon