Ismailïa (2-volume First Edition)

First edition. 2 volumes 8vo. [3], vi-viii, [1], 2-447, [2], 2-55 (pages of publisher's advertisements), [1]; [3], vi-viii, [1], 2-588 pp.

Green cloth with a gold rule on each board, decorations in gold on the front boards with gold lettering and decorations on the spine. Coated brown endpapers and pastedowns. Each volume illustrated with a frontispiece; volume one with a fold-out map and with twenty-one plates; volume two with twenty-eight plates and a color full-page map. Expedition organized by Ismail, Khedive of Egypt.

In his first expedition to Egypt and the Sudan, Baker learned Arabic, and took notes on the geology of the Nile and its tributaries. In 1869, at the request of the khedive Ismail, Baker led a military expedition to the equatorial regions of the Nile, with the object of suppressing the slave-trade there and opening the way to commerce and civilization. Before starting from Cairo with a force of 1700 Egyptian troops many of them discharged convicts he was given the rank of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman army. The khedive appointed him Governor-General of the new territory of Equatoria for four years at a salary of £10,000 a year; and it was not until the expiration of that time that Baker returned to Cairo, and then England. ISMAILIA is Baker's narrative of his time as Pasha. His wife accompanied him on this dangerous expedition from Egypt to the Nile Sources.

Baker remains famous for explorations for the source of the Nile, and for writing Ismailia, some of the most important Victorian narratives of African travel.

The volumes are quite handsome, despite age-related faults

The inner hinges are cracking/cracked, and the outer extremities, corners, edges of cloth are worn

This was originally sold by Trophy Room Books years ago for $450.