WALKS AND SKETCHES AT THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE

Second edition, enlarged: 198, bound in half brown calf with matching cloth sides, the spine is titled and delicately decorated in gilt in panels, marbled endpapers and edges, light foxing on the title page, a very good copy.

Kennedy (R.F.) Africana Repository, pp. 85-6: ‘Robert Semple walked in the vicinity of Cape Town and as far as Simonstown, carrying on a most informative conversation with his dear friend Charles. In the second edition, I805, he explains who Charles is, in a footnote to p.10: "In presenting to the world a second and enlarged edition of this little work, I embrace the opportunity which it affords me of replying to a question which my friends have repeatedly asked. ‘Who was Charles of whom you talk with so much warmth, and who is so constantly the companion of your walks?' To this I reply that in fact no friend ever accompanied me in the excursions which I have particularly described. I thrice ascended the Table Mountain alone; alone I stood upon its highest pinnacle; alone I looked up to heaven, and felt my heart overflow with gratitude. Yet the idea of a friend who is now dead was ever present with me, and I conceived myself perfectly at liberty to embody what I know would have been his thoughts, and his mode of expression had he indeed accompanied me. Such was the origin of Charles."'The journey to Plettenberg Bay was made on horseback and one of his companions was a brother merchant of the Cape.'

'Mendelssohn in his Bibliography gives a long description of the book, but does not say who Robert Semple was. There is an interesting note about him by Margaret Kannemeyer in Africana Notes and News, vol.5, pp. 22-3, in which she draws attention to the fact that he is in the British Dictionary of National Biography: He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1766, of British parents. He travelled in many parts of the world and wrote several books of description and travel. He became a Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company and was killed in Canada, in 1816, in a fight with the men of a rival company. Eric Rosenthal in his Stars and Stripes in Africa, which deals with the part played by Americans in Africa, does not index Semple.'

'The 2nd edition of the Walks includes an additional chapter on the Hottentots, and the journey to Plettenberg Bay has some additional matter.’

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-25081), ‘Semple, Robert (1777–1816), traveller and governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, the son of Robert Semple and Anne Greenlaw, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, on 26 February 1777. His parents were loyalists and returned to England about the time of the American War of Independence. He became a merchant for London firms and travelled widely, recording his impressions and adventures in short plain narratives which were well received. He was in Cape Colony in 1802, and published an account of his travels in 1803. In 1803 he was back in London, and on 26 June 1805 he left for a journey through Spain and Italy to Naples and thence to Smyrna and Constantinople, of which an account was published in 1807. In 1808 and 1809 he made a second journey in Portugal and Spain, eventually going to Gibraltar and Tangier; this he recorded in a book of 1809. That year he travelled in the West Indies and Brazil, and in a book of 1812 described Caracas, Venezuela, at the beginning of the rebellion against Spain. His adventurous journey in the rear of the allied armies from Hamburg by Berlin to Göteborg, in the course of which he was taken for an American spy by Lord Cathcart and arrested, was described in 1814.

'In 1815 Semple was appointed governor of the Hudson's Bay Company territories through the influence of Lord Selkirk, although it is not clear what recommended him for the post. After leaving England in June 1815 he arrived at the Red River settlement in November to find that it had been destroyed by the North West Company. Both companies were trying to destroy the supply lines of the other and win the support of the local métis (mixed-race) population. The cause of the Hudson's Bay Company was not helped by disagreement between Semple and Colin Robertson, an experienced Hudson's Bay Company man, which resulted in Robertson's leaving the area in June 1816.

'Without Robertson's advice, Semple misjudged an encounter on 19 June 1816 at Seven Oaks between himself and a party of Hudson's Bay Company men on the one hand and a party of métis traders on the other. Having realized too late the need for heavy arms, Semple and about twenty others of his party were killed in a skirmish. The North West Company was later shown to have rewarded some of those involved in the killings. The massacre demonstrated the need for firm action to halt the feud and ultimately led to the amalgamation of the two companies in 1821. Semple's death was due in large measure to his appointment to a post for which he was unqualified.'