VOYAGE TO ABYSSINIA

by Father Jerome Lobo, a Portuguese Missionary.

Containing the History, Natural, Civil, and Ecclesiastical, of that Remote and Unfrequented Country, Continued Down to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century:

With Fifteen Dissertations on Various Subjects, Relating to the Antiquities, Government, Religion, Manners, and Natural History of Abyssinia by M. Le Grand.

Translated from the French by Samuel Johnson.

To which are Added, Various Other Tracts by the Same Author Not Published by Sir John Hawkins or Mr. Stockdale

Second edition in English. 500 pages, (pages 247 - 248 repeated in the numbering) contemporary full calf worn at the edges and spine, marbled end papers, front board detached, front free end papers missing, bookplate on front paste down end paper,a good copy.

One of the most important and earliest sources on Ethiopia and the Nile River.

Jerome Lobo (1595-1687), a Jesuit priest, stayed in Ethiopia for nine years and travelled to Lake Tana and the Blue Nile, reaching the province of Damot. When the Jesuits were expelled from the country by by Basilides in 1648, he too had to leave and did so via Massaua and Suakin. He was the foremost European expert on Ethiopian matters of his day. Also, after Pais, Lobo is the second European to describe the sources of the Blue Nile and his account is in many ways more accurate then Bruce.

This translation into English, first published in 1735 by Samuel Johnson, was one of his earliest commissions for which he was paid five guineas.