MATABELE LAND AND THE VICTORIA FALLS

A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Interior of Southern Africa, from the letters & journals of the late Frank Oates, F.R.G.S.

Second (and best) edition: xlii + 433 pages, frontispiece portrait, 4 folding maps, 14 hand coloured lithographs (of natural history subjects including 2 of birds by Keulemans), 6 chromolithographic plates, woodcut vignette on title page, 38 woodcuts in the text, original green pictorial cloth over bevelled boards, a very good copy.

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).