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Auction #114 begins on 11 Apr 2024

Lieut.-Colonel E. Elers Napier

Excursions in Southern Africa including a History of the Cape Colony, an account of the native tribes, etc.

Published: William Shoberl, London, 1850

Edition: First edition

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First edition, in two volumes (pp. xxx, 359; iv, 456). Small octavo (20 cm) in half polished calf over maroon publisher's cloth, gilt titles; frontispiece of General Smith (with some foxing) and several other images, lacking frontis to volume one. Contains chapters on the Quaiquae, the Hottentots of old, extracts from van Riebeeck’s journal, attack on Grahamstown by the prophet Makama, Macomo the Gaika chief, etc.

"An account of the Cape Colony from the earliest period of settlement down to the Kaffir War of 18776-7. The second volume gives a record of the campaign - the War of the Axe - in which Lieut.-Colonel Napier was engaged as a supernumerary officer in charge of the irregular forces. The author states he was impressed with the previous misgovernment of the colony, and with 'the numerous wrongs it had suffered - owing chiefly to shameful intrigues and gross misrepresentations', and the work, as originally written, appears to have been a very outspoken expose of the shortcomings of the British Government at the Cape" (Mendelssohn). A very good, sound copy. 



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