SOLDIERING AND SURVEYING IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA

1891 1894 with maps and illustrations

First edition. xvi + 333 pages, frontispiece – sketch of Kilimanjaro by the author, 9 folding maps, 11 full page black and white plates, original maroon cloth - recased, titled gilt on the spine, which is now faded, corners slightly bumped, light foxing on several pages of the text, uncut edges, a very good copy.

Sir James Ronald Leslie Macdonald, KCSI, KCIE, CB (8 February 1862 – 27 June 1927) was a Scottish engineer, explorer and cartographer. He served as a British Army engineer, rose to the rank of Brigadier-General and was knighted. A balloon observer as a young man, he surveyed for railways in India and East Africa, explored the upper Nile region, commanded balloon sections during wars in South Africa and China.

Macdonald had become a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1891, and gave an account of his African Expedition to the society at a meeting in June 1899.He was next posted to South Africa, where he was responsible for introducing most of the new sections of balloon observers, which made a significant contribution to British progress in the Second Boer War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Macdonald_(engineer)