TROIS ANS DANS L'AFRIQUE AUSTRALE

Le Pays des Matabele

Débuts de la mission du Zambèse

Lettres des Peres H. Depelchin et Ch. Croonenberghs S.J. 1879, 1880, 1881

First edition. 432 pages, frontispiece portrait, folding coloured map, top edge gilt, rebound in half green morocco with matching cloth boards, marbled end papers. titled gilt on the spine, a very good copy.

Mendelssohn (Sidney) South African Bibliography volume 1 page 450: In the year 1876 the Catholic College of St. Aidan resolved to found a mission in the regions to the north of the River Limpopo in the countries of the Matabeles and the Marotses. Father Depelchin was consecrated in 1878, and he, and the other fathers and brethren composing the mission, left Europe for South Africa in the early days of 1879, the first letter from the father being dated from Grahamstown on February nth. This letter, with the subsequent communications, gives an account of the voyage to Cape Town, and the journey to the interior, via Kimberley, Bloemhof, Zeerust, Shoshong, and the " Tati," to Bulawayo. There is an interesting description of the adventures of the expedition, the reception of the Jesuit missionaries by Lobengula, and of the life of the missionaries in Matabele- land, the work being one of the earliest written upon the modern history of the country. The volume contains a map of the territories of Lobengula, Umzila, and the Marotses, &c. &c, and a portrait of Father Depelchin.