Sport in Somaliland

Translation: Jeremiah Curtin; Illustrations: Piotr Stackiewicz

OVERALL REVIEW

This is Copy 116 of the 1900 limited and signed edition of the speciality publisher Rowland Ward. There was an original Polish edition of 1897, but, as in the case of subsequent English editions, this was not produced to the same standards.

The book describes and illustrates a hunting trip in the Horn of Africa by a Polish Count, Joseph Potocki, which took place two years after the transfer of Somaliland by Britain to Italy, although at the time (1896) Britain still retained control of the territory, with authority vesting with the British Resident in Berbera, the capital.

Potocki was accompanied by two other Polish Counts, Jan Grudzinski and Tomasz Zamoyski. They travelled to London in the autumn of 1895 for advice and supplies for the expedition. 

After shipping the supplies - 200 pieces of baggage - the party sailed to Aden and transshipped to Berbera, arriving on 14 December and meeting their "perfect and English-speaking" guide, Alikhar, and the "army" that Alikhar had recruited - "about fifty", including 25 drivers (for the 50 pack camels), grooms for four horses, servants and camp-followers, and the only woman - a Somali shepherdess for the flock of sheep taken with the party to supplement the rations.

The group then travelled to their first hunting area in the Haud region and made camp on 23 December. Potocki's 1 January to 29 February 1896 diary of the hunting trip occupies two-thirds of the text. After Haud, the party moved to a second hunting area in the Ogaden (both illustrated in the coloured map).

The main illustrations are by the author's Polish compatriot, Piotr Stachiewicz, while many of the others are taken from photographs.

DESCRIPTION

A customised solander box (described below) was made for a previous owner of Copy 116.

The Rowland Ward edition copies were originally full-bound in cream buckram. This copy has been expertly rebound with a polished brown calf spine and corners and new cream cloth-boards, on which the original buckram covers have been laid down. The new spine has 5 raised bands with gilt lettering and design. The top page-edge is gilt and the other edges are uncut. The original endpapers, printed in two colours to represent a snakeskin, have been retained.

The colour frontispiece of the author, with his facsimile signature in grey, is reproduced by V J Löwy of Vienna from an original 1891 painting. The contents comprise xiii + 136 pp of text and 4pp of index on heavy gloss art and with 65 half-tone illustrations in the text (7 b/w and the others in 2, 3 or 4 colours) + 18 inserted tissue-protected monochrome photogravure plates (of which 5 are double pages), vignetted on India paper(*) + a 9-fold colour map inserted at the back. 

(*) "1. 1788. A soft absorbent paper of creamy yellow or pale buff colour, imported from China, and used for the proofs of engravings . . . Hence India paper proofs (also India proofs)." - Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1980)

CONDITION NOTES

The copy is complete and unmarked. The binding, covers, endpapers, frontispiece, text and illustrations, as well as the inserted plates and their tissue guards, are all in better than very good condition. The lower corner of the contents page has been expertly restored (see image). The frontispiece and most of the inserted photogravures are foxed towards the page edges, but the artwork itself unaffected (see images). The top-page gilding remains bright and the map is as new, unmarked and untorn. 

SOLANDER BOX

The corners of the 2 kg 440 x 340 x 70 mm maroon cloth-board solander box are lightly rubbed, but the condition remains better than very good. The box is lined with figured cornfield card. Gilt-lettered scarlet labels are pasted to the upper panel and the spine.