TRAVELS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Second Edition, Corrected, 1815. The 1st and 3rd editions were also produced in 1815.

Half leather binding, marbled boards.  Binding tight and good. All pages and plates complete. Some off-set staining adjacent to plates, and some discolouring and foxing. Folding map (undamaged) has paper reinforcements made to folds. Plate of Bethelsdorp also has a paper reinforcement made to the edge of the page

Frontispiece portrait of Campbell at Orange River. Frontispiece, folding map plus nine plates. Plates IV and V on same folding page. Pages [i-v]vi-xv[xvi] 1-400. Page 400 ends with directions to the binders.

This book (41 chapters) is an interesting and entertaining account of Campbell's travels and the people and places he visited in the early 19th century. In 1812, on the death of Dr Van der Kemp, the London Missionary Society sent Campbell to inspect the settlements of the Society. He visited Stellenbosch, Genadendal and Caledon, where he enjoyed the hospitality of Michiel Vos (the Cape Silversmith turned church minister). Later he went on to Bethelsdorp where he met Mr Read (Van der Kemp's successor) and together they travelled to Grahamstown and Graaf Reynet (sic). He met Burchell en route to the Orange River and the Northern Cape (Pella). On page 330 writing about Northern Namaqualand, he describes staying with the elderly Mrs Vandervesthuis in the Kamma mountains. The lady said she had given LeVaillant 'a good drubbing with a shambuck for speaking improperly of her daughters' when LeVaillant visited the area some years before. Appendix X has interesting ethnographic information about the Xhosa people, Madagascar and Mauritius in the early 19th century. Appendix VII has the Lord's Prayer in both Hottentot and Coranna languages. In Appendix XIII and XIV Campbell sharply criticises Lichtenstein's and Maria Graham's books in which they describe the situation in South Africa in 1812. Reference: Mendelssohn's SA Bibliography (Mansell 1979) page 374.