THE BENGAL SPORTING MAGAZINE

Containing a 33 page review of CAPTAIN HARRIS’S EXPEDITION INTO SOUTH AFRICA, published by the American Mission Press in Bombay in 1838.

Pages 304 – 390, 4 lithographic plates (1 folding and 1 hand coloured – none of which illustrate the Harris review), bound in quarter calf with a leather title label on the upper cover.

The author of the review is not named but it is evident that he knew of Harris, “Our author is well known to the Anglo-Indians on the West of India ad a persevering sportsman, almost unrivalled as a shot, and quite without peer in his pursuit of the natural history and generic properties of those denizens of the forest which fall to the rifle or the Manton of the British Sportsman. We remember hearing him spoken of so far back at 1826, as one of the most promising hands in the country; but we have never been fortunate enough to receive any detail of his achievements, until the work, in which is African deeds are so ‘modestly rehearsed,’ came before us to review, In fact, he seems himself to have regarded India as a second-rate field of enterprise, for in the Introduction to his ‘Expedition,’ he tells us that even when engaged in the animating and exciting pursuit of the deer or tiger, his thoughts ‘wandered to the wilds of Africa,’ and the giraffe, elephant, the rhinoceros, Etc., haunted his day dreams and besought his attention.” ……. “At length, he had the good fortune to be taken ill, and was most agreeably sentenced, by a discerning Medial Board, to take a trip to the Cape of Good Hope! This was an admirable prescription.” (Officers who were invalided to the Cape were able remain on full army pay whereas if they went to England they were put on half pay.).

There continues a detailed review of Harris’s book interspersed with lengthy extracts from his text and concludes, “Let him not be lamented that he went to the expense of informing the public of his adventures, but, on the contrary, let every copy of his work be bought up with avidity that he and others may be furnished with an inducement to communicate to the world the fruits of the future researches.”

The Bengal Sporting Magazine ran from 1833 – 1845. It was printed in Calcutta by William Rushton, at the Englishman Press.