A Transport Voyage to the Mauritius and back

"This is a book of gossip. Therefore let the geographer, the man of statistics, the emigrant, and the useful knowledge seeker, avoid it. It gives neither exports nor imports - holds out no finger posts to commerce and has no hints for the location of unemployed labourers or distressed needle women. Dates and names, even, are suppressed or altered - for a reason probably obvious enough."

The author, Adam Blenkinsop, travelled from Cork in Ireland to Port Louis in Mauritius. He preferred indigenous place names as he was not in favour of places naming them after colonials.

He provides his impression of the island, its people and their ways. On the return he visited Port Elizabeth in South Africa and comments on the town.  He also visited Cape Town and gives a description of the town and its people. He climbed Table Mountain, visited Constantia and made a comments on 'posterial luxuriance' of some of the inhabitants; he also names the range of wines available and mentions his favourite wine.

He continued his return via St. Helena and Ascension Island and provides an amusing description of his experience with customs official on return home: " ... anything I would advise a man not to do, it is the volunteering to bring home parcels or presents of any kind from persons in foreign parts ..." sage advice even today!

vii, [1], 303, [1] pp.. Ex libris: only evidence is the inoffensive colourless punched stamp of the Johannesburg Public Library on the title page and MS "Strange 29696" on the verso. Occasional light foxing and a few pages with light stains, otherwise a clean copy. Beautifully rebound in half leather.

Mendelssohn I, p.136; Toussaint and Adolphe, Bibliography of Mauritius, D165.