MAP OF THE TRANSVAAL AND THE SURROUNDING TERRITORIES

600 x 615 mm, hand coloured in district and colonial outlines, attractive insets (each approx. 60 x 60 mm) of the Zimbabwe Ruins, a Plan of Lourenco Marques (Delagoa Bay) and a Plan of Pretoria, mounted on linen in panels, folds into untitled blue cloth covers with marbled endpapers and a bookplate of Alpheus Fuller Williams on inner flap. There is a handwritten title on pencil on the back of an inner fold, a very good copy.

Engraved by Edward Weller at Stationers Hall in London

A very early map of the British Transvaal. Nineteen Transvaal districts are indicated by coloured borders. Additional information on the map gives a great deal of geographical and historical data. The references indicate all known goldfields and other places where 'Mines, metals and minerals' were to be found. Gold, lead and copper are indicated on the Witwatersrand (and indeed, all over the new colony).

The references provide a great deal of other information, including the routes of eleven prominent travellers in the Transvaal - among them Mauch, Baines and Colley. One of the three insets shows a 'Continuation of Mauch's Route to the ruins of Zimbabwe, discd. 5th. Sept. 1871'. A table providing 'Distances by Trochiameter' details in both miles and furlongs distances between all towns on the postal routes. The same details are given for dozens of miscellaneous centres and for a similar number of Intermediate Stations along the Main Postal Route. A final, smaller table, shows 'Distances and Altitudes of projected Line of Railway from Lourenco Marques to Drakensberg according to Prely. Survey taken by R.T. Hall, Esq. C.E.' Jeppe's map showcases the abundant promise of the new (but bankrupt) colony, with the obvious Imperial delight in the expansion of communications, in the bright prospect of railway development and in an exposition of the tremendous mining potential. Of the surrounding territories, most of Griqualand West, the Orange Free State, northern Natal, Zululand, southern Mozambique and the Trans-Limpopo appear also in considerable detail.