New Edition: 2 volumes, I. iv, 608. II. ii, 582 pages, engraved title pages as frontispieces in each volume, engraved portrait of the author, 4 folding plates, 4 plates of natural history subjects (in volume II), contemporary full mottled leather with red and green title labels - the leather is very worn and eroded, hinges splitting but holding on the ties, page edges dyed red, bookplate on each front paste-down endpaper, contents very lightly browned but free of foxing.
Howgego (R.J.) Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800, Horden House 2003, S66, page 947: Schouten (Gautier). Dutch seaman and traveller (1638-1704). Schouten first sailed from Amsterdam as ship’s surgeon in April 1658 and spent the following seven years in the East, participating in many notable voyages. In 1660 he was present at the Dutch siege of Makassar (in Sulawesi), and in November 1661 visited Colombo, in Ceylon. During 1661-62 he participated in the campaigns of Rijcklof Van Goens along the Malabar coast, and in 1664 he was in Bengal and Arakan. In Batavia in 1667 he collected information about the loss of Zeelandia (on Formosa/Taiwan). He also visited Sumatra, the Moluccas, and Amboina, finally returning to Holland in October 1665.
Schouten was an observant traveller who explored inland into the environs of nearly every port-of-call, sometimes by himself or with a small group of comrades. His narrative, full of anecdotes as well as information gleaned about countries he had not visited, became particularly popular with readers in the eighteenth century, when it was republished in no fewer than seven editions.
- Overall Condition: Very good
- Size: 12mo (170 x 100 mm)
