Before Van Riebeeck

Starting with Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, and ending with Jean-Baptiste Tavernier in 1649, this book describes 153 early travellers to South African shores, the ships they arrived on, and their interaction with the local populace, providing the reader with very important insights into the hardships of these early pioneers, and their struggle to settle and set up trade posts and homesteads and generally seek out any opportunities which the country offered. "When they see ships coming they bring their oxen to the shore... and barter them for tobacco and brandy, and beads of crystal and agate... and other trifles. If they are not content with what they are offered they at once go off, and the beasts follow them at a certain whistle... and one sees no more of them. Some of our folk, seeing that they made off thus, fired a few musket-shots to kill their beasts; but after that the Kaffers would bring no beasts for some days, and it was very difficult to get them to come again... I add that it is neither the the climate nor the hot sun which makes the Kaffers so black as they are...[but] the smearing with a grease which they prepare from various herbs known to them, and [I was told] that if they are not smeared with it as soon as they are born, they would become dropsical like the other blacks of Africa..."(J.B.Tavernier, p.180).Book in very good condition, some edge wear to boards, fore edge marked; jacket good though rubbed, and chipped along top and bottom edges - now protected with a Brodart plastic sleeve.