Beautifully rebound by hand (so expect imperfections, not machine-perfect results) in soft full leather. Each volume has a frontispiece and engraved title page. Illustrated with steel engravings on plates and a folded map at the end of volume 1. The text pages are generally creamy white and for the most part free of foxing. The illustrated plates, as is common with this edition, have some foxing.
Narrative of Steedman's travels during his ten years of residence in the Cape during which he explored most of the Cape Colony and Kaffraria. The work also gives an overview of many early expeditions in South Africa with sketches of native races and their history and wars, the pioneer colonists of Natal. Steedman was a keen collector and naturalist, his name being given to a species of meerkat: Cynictis Steedmanii. During his travels Steedman collected over 300 animals, including some that had not yet been described, as well as ethnographic specimens. In 1833 he returned to England and arranged an exhibition of his animals in the Colosseum, Regent's Park, London. The Appendices (213 pages) include a letter and journal by Mr. A. G. Bain, who accompanied Dr. (afterwards Sir A.) Smith's expedition into the interior as far as Philippolis, and gives an account of the journey, and much valuable matter respecting the Kat River and other settlements in Kaffraria, and the Kaffir outbreaks and wars up to this period. There is also an account of the wreck of the Grosvenor in 1782. The narrative contains much information respecting the wreck of the vessel, the expeditions in search of the survivors, the descendants of shipwrecked Europeans on the Caffrarian Coast, there is also a steel engraving of the disaster, from a painting by Smirke. (Mendelssohn, Royal Geographical Society of London)
