Travels in the Interior of Africa [by Mungo Park] and In Southern Africa [by John Barrow]

 Glasgow: W. Sommerville, A Fullarton, J. Blackie, 1817. First edition (pp. 479). Octavo (21 cm) in quarter leather over marbled boards; six illustrations (portrait of Park, Kamalia, Bridge over… Black River, map of colony of Cape of Good Hope, two portraits of local inhabitants, the ‘Gnoo’ and broad-tailed sheep, but not including map showing Park’s route— we have the gnoo and sheep in its stead). Covers rubbed and flaked, pp. 343/344 damaged with small loss to text— as the damaged text on both pages refers explicitly to the ‘covering a [Hottentot man] fastens around his waist… for the purpose of receiving those… [Na]ture has taught them to conceal’ and, similarly at p. 344,  where it is noted women of lesser fortune ‘have not the triangular piece of skin be[hind]…. [T]hey always wear a sheep skin round the waist, which desce[nds as] low as the middle of the legs’, it appears a misguided do-gooder may have been at work (the portrait page is marked with tabs as well). Nevertheless a decent, clean copy.