Matabele Land and the Victoria Falls. A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Interior of South Africa. From the Letters & Journals of the Late Frank Oates, F.R.G.S.

First edition. Edited by C. G. Oates. Demy 8vo; later quarter morocco, with cloth sides; spine compartments tooled in blind, with gilt lettering-piece; t.e.g; marbled endpapers; pp. xliii + (i) + 383, incl. index; several coloured plates; monochrome plates; line drawings in text; four folding maps. Cover very slightly rubbed; bottom fore-corner of upper board a touch bumped; earlier owner's hand-stamp to flyleaf; maps a bit foxed; one map with some archival tape repairs; occasional spotting. (Mendelssohn II, p. 112; Czech, p. 124) "Frank Oates was born near Leeds on April 6, 1840, and was educated at Oxford. After a tour in the Rocky Mountains he formed a plan for an expedition to visit the Zambesi Falls via Natal, and accompanied by this brother, Mr. W. E. Oates, 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, a portrait of Mr. Oates, and several maps and other illustrations. 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." - Mendelssohn. Kenneth Czech notes: "C.G. Oates edited his brother's notebooks and published them in 1881. Shortly after, a fire at the publisher's 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."