KENYA DIARY 1902 - 1906

London : Oliver & Boyd, 1957. First Edition. Original hardback in the dust-jacket, which is slightly soiled and chipped at head and tail of the spine. Original brown cloth boards. 347 pages with black-&-white phootgaphs (by the author) and maps throughout, and an appendix listing the weights & measurements of large mammals. Former owner's neat inked signature, place and date to flyleaf. A very good copy in a chipped jacket.

Colonel Richard Henry Meinertzhagen, CBE, DSO (1878-1967). Soldier, intelligence officer and ornithologist. He he describes his activities as chief of British Military Intelligence for the East African campaign at Nairobi, Kenya. He also saw action in France, Palestine and Sinai. His diaried records contain harsh assessments of senior officers, of the role played by the Royal Navy and of the quality of the Indian units dispatched to German East Africa. He also describes the skirmish at Tanga as "possibly the most disgraceful defeat a British Army has ever suffered". He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in February 1916 and his writing was greatly admired by the thriller writer Ian Fleming.