Three Years in Savage Africa

Published by London, Methuen & Co., 1898. 8vo, pp. xxxi, [1], 594, 40 (publisher's catalogue); with half-title, photographic frontispiece of the author, 3 coloured maps (2 folding), 2 additional maps and 105 illustrations (some full-page) in the text; title toned from tissue guard, occasional light foxing, closed tear to first folding map (without loss, repaired to verso); very good plus original cloth gilt with leopard print to the corners. A nice copy. First edition recounting the author's 7000-mile journey from Cape Town to Mombasa 'the longest journey that has yet been achieved at one stretch from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean' in order 'to study the ethnology and anthropology of the interior tribes'.'

'The author, a Frenchman by birth, domiciled in England, was entrusted by the French Government with the carrying out of an expedition for scientific purposes, and he was instructed "to proceed to South and East Africa to study their ethnology and anthology [sic]" the results of his researches are embodied in the contents of this volume, which, however, are by no means confined to a description of the south-eastern parts of the continent' (Mendelssohn). Reaching Cape Town in May 1891, and with the assistance of Governor Sir Henry Locke and Cecil Rhodes (to whom the book is dedicated), Decle set off north via Kimberley and Vryburg, proceeded though Palachwe and Khama (which he intensely disliked), crossed the Zambesi, traversed the Khalari, described the Victoria Falls, and visited numerous cities in Matabeleland.