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Auction #135 begins on 12 Nov 2026

Rhijne (Willem ten)

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE

and the Hottentots, the Natives of that Country. by William Ten Rhyne, Native of Deventry, Physician in Ordinary, and a Member of the Council of Justice, to the Dutch East-Indie Company; with some Animadversions upon the same, by Henry Secreta a Zevorzit

Reserve: $200

Approximately:

Estimate: $250/300

Bidding opens: 12 Nov 16:30 GMT

Bidding closes: 19 Nov 16:30 GMT

Ships from: South Africa

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Translated from the Latin Original, printed at Schaffhausen in Switzerland.

Pages 829 – 845, later blue cloth binding titled gilt along the spine - the cloth is split the bottom of the spine, contents clean and bright.

Extracted from: Churchill (Awnsham and John) Churchill's Collection of Voyages, vol. iv. pages 829-845. Folio. 1707.

Mendelssohn (Sidney) South African Bibliography vol.2 page 470: ten Rhijne visited the Cape in October 1673, and he gives an account of the natural features of the country in the neighbourhood of Table Bay. Very little is said about the settlement, its government, or the Dutch inhabitants, and the interest of the work centres in the description of the natural history, and an account of the Hottentots, the latter taking up the greater part of the volume.

Willem ten Rhijne (1647, Deventer – 1 June 1700, Batavia) was a Dutch doctor and botanist who was employed by the Dutch East India Company in 1673. In summer 1674 he was dispatched to the trading post Dejima in Japan. While giving medical instructions and taking care of high-ranking Japanese patients, ten Rhijne collected materials on Japanese medicine, especially on acupuncture and moxibustion.

In autumn 1676 he returned to Batavia where he continued to serve as a physician. In 1683 he published a book entitled "Dissertatio de Arthritide: Mantissa Schematica: De Acupunctura: Et Orationes Tres". His treatise on the art of needling which he called acupunctura was the first Western detailed study on that matter. He also wrote An Account of the Cape of Good Hope and the Hottentotes, which describes the lives of the Khoikhoi (then Hottentots) during the early days of Dutch settlement in the Cape as well as a pioneering book on Leprosy in Asia (Dutch: Asiatise Melaatsheid) and a treatise on tea that was published by Jakob Breyne. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_ten_Rhijne)

The Latin original was published in 1686: Schediasma de promontorio bonae spei eiusque tractus incolis Hottentottis Wilhelmi ten Rhyne Schediasma de promontorio bonae spei eiusque ejusqve tractus incolis Hottentottis accurante, brevesque notas addente Henr. Screta S. a Zavorziz. Scafusii: Meister, 1686. (English translation: An Account of the Cape of Good Hope and the Hottentotes, the Natives of that Country, 1704)

  • Overall Condition: Very good
  • Size: Folio (330 x210mm)


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