FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO

377 pages, frontispiece portrait of Grogan, 1 colour plate, 44 full-page plates from drawings by A.D. McCormick, numerous photographs and text illustrations, 3 maps - 2 colour folding,plain red cloth (possibly a library or remainder binding), spine titled gilt, uncut fore-and bottom edges, top edge gilt, foxing on the preliminary pages and page edges, a very good copy.

Mendelsson (Sidney) South African Bibliography vol. 1 pages 648 - 649: In a letter from Mr. Cecil Rhodes, which serves as an introduction to the volume, the founder of Rhodesia remarks that he envies Mr. Grogan for having done " that which has been for centuries the ambition of every explorer, namely, to walk through Africa from South to North." The fact that " a youth from Cambridge, during his vacation, should have succeeded in doing that which the ponderous explorers of the world have failed to accomplish," was a source of keen amusement and interest to the South African statesman, who saw in the feat a sign of the future fulfilment of his great scheme for linking North and South Africa together by railway and telegraph. The route pursued by the explorers was from the Cape to Beira, through the Pungwe flats to the Zambesi, thence through the lake districts of Nyassa, Rukwa, Tanganyika, Albert Edward Nyanza, and Albert Nyanza to the regions of the Upper Nile, Dinkaland, and Nuerland, via Fashoda and Khartoum to Wady Haifa and Cairo. The narrative is most vivid and interesting, and many of the countries traversed were little known to Europeans. Although Mr. Grogan was so young a man, he appears to have grasped many of the problems of the Dark Continent in a wonderful manner, and his remarks are characterised by a shrewdness and capability which would have been surprising in the case of a much travelled explorer, but were more extraordinary when it is considered that the book was written by an undergraduate. The information afforded with regard to the natives encountered is ample and instructive, and the shooting adventures are a great feature of the work. The volume (with the exception of Chapter XVI., " Uganda to the Coast," which was contributed by Mr. Sharp) was written entirely by Mr. Grogan ; it contains portraits of the explorers, and an immense number of full-plate and other engravings, one of which are coloured, together with maps illustrative of the route pursued.