JOURNAL OF A VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA IN 1815 AND 1816

Facsimile reprint: 48 introduction + 406 pages, folding coloured map as frontispiece, 12 coloured plates & 4 uncoloured plates, brown cloth, a very good copy.

Number 687 of the edition limited to 1000 copies.

Bradlow (Frank R.) in the introduction comments about the plates, ‘In view of the fact that all twelve of the coloured aquatint engravings, whether by Melville or Latrobe, would appear to have been redrawn by R. Cocking, it is of interest that the only merit Latrobe claims for the sketches is that they are 'scrupulously exact in outline'. This accuracy is almost certainly due to the fact that Latrobe used a portable camera obscura to capture the outlines. He twice refers to this camera obscura, once on page 73, when he relates how, when it was standing “in a position which showed the church and the grove, with people passing and repassing”, the Genadendal Hottentots were “exceedingly amused and astonished”. These twelve aquatints are in three tints, grey, black and brown, with hand water-colouring. They are extremely competent in composition, technique, and colouring, and in the writer's opinion, are superior to most illustrations in other contemporary books of South African travel.’