MATABELE LAND AND THE VICTORIA FALLS

Second Edition: xlii + 433 pages, 8vo (235 x 155 mm), engraved frontispiece portrait, 4 folding maps - the large map at the end is torn at the first fold, 14 lithographs (of natural history subjects including 2 of birds by Keulemans) all but one hand coloured, 6 chromolithographic plates, woodcut vignette, a very good copy of the second and best edition with the additional plates and appendix.

Mendelssohn (Sydney) South African Bibliography, volume  2, page 112, '...accompanied by his brother, Mr. W.W. Oates, (he) sailed for South Africa in March 1873. The brothers fitted out their expedition at Maritzburg, and travelled through the Transvaal and Bechuanaland, visiting the Tati district, soon after which Mr W.E. Oates returned to England. Frank Oates proceeded to Bulawayo, and he gives an interesting account of Matabeleland at this period. He was well received by Lobengula, who gave him considerable assistance, but owing to many delays he made several unsuccessful attempts to reach the falls and did not arrive there till the last day of the year 1874; soon after which he was attacked by fever and died on the return journey to Tati early in February 1875. His account of Matabeleland is one of the best of the earlier modern works on the country, and the volume possesses a number of coloured and chromo plates. The appendices contain an article on South African Ethnology by Dr. George Rolleston, and catalogues and descriptions of the ornithological, botanical, and entomological collections formed by Mr. Oates.' One of the chromolithographic plates is a particularly fine view of the Victoria Falls (Western extremity).

Czech (Dr. Kenneth) An Annotated Bibliography of African Big Game Hunting Books 1785 – 1999, page 210, '....Oates eventually reached Victoria Falls late in 1874. While returning, he was stricken with fever and died shortly after. C.G. Oates edited his brother's notebooks and published them in 1881. Shortly after, a fire at the publisher destroyed the unsold copies of the first edition, and it wasn't until 1889 that a second edition was published by Kegan, Paul and Trench. The second edition includes updated information not found in the first, plus a six-page preface by C.G. Oates explaining the nature of the second edition.'