First edition: 2 volumes, unpaginated, frontispiece portraits of Burchell, 1 map in each volume, 19 + 20 (13 folding) collotype reproductions with descriptive text (4 + 11 in colour), half red morocco with matching cloth boards, titled gilt on the spines, marbled endpapers, volume 2 has uncut fore edges, a very good set in the dust jackets.
From the introduction:
“In the year 1812, Burchell visited that country and pushed his scientific and persevering researches as far as Chuë, a considerable distance north-west of Lithako... Burchell’s Travels are by far more correct and interesting than anything of the kind which has been written; and his drawings, as well as his descriptions of the native character, are exceedingly graphic.”
Burchell says:
'The movements and migrations of man over the surface of the globe, form a subject of high interest to a reflecting mind; and in tracing these, we trace the general history of the world. In the greater number of cases, the only records to which we can refer for information and guidance are personal features, language, and ancient customs. Of these, the two latter are the more usually attended to by travellers, and frequently, as before remarked, supply the most valuable evidence; but the first is certainly not of less importance, and has been neglected only perhaps on account of the greater difficulty of obtaining faithful and characteristic national portraits, to enable us to make comparisons, for the purpose of tracing, or discovering among them, a similar or dissimilar cast of features or of ascertaining the comparative proportions of form and figure. To this task, the pen is quite inadequate, and for the performance of it there remains therefore only the pencil; not, indeed, the pencil of the mere picture-maker who, apparently, has no higher object in view than to please the eye or ornament a book, and whose works, unfortunately, may too often deserve the name of fraudulent impositions, and serve but to mislead those who, in search of such information, should draw conclusions from them.'
Burchell (William J.) TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR OF SOUTHERN AFRICA, London, 1822-1824, volume II, pages 549-550.
- Overall Condition: Very good
- Size: Folio (360 x270mm)
