"ANDREW SMITH'S JOURNAL OF HIS EXPEDITION INTO THE INTERIOR OF SOUTH AFRICA 1834-1836 - AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS AND DISCOVERIES, THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE NATIVE TRIBES, AND THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE COUNTRY" HARDCOVER, 1975 FIRST EDITION, 323 PAGES, IN VERY GOOD CONDITION, NO NAMES, INSCRIPTIONS ETC
In 1820 Andrew Smith was ordered to the Cape Colony and was sent to Grahamstown to supervise the medical care of European soldiers and soldiers of the Cape Corps. He was appointed the Albany district surgeon in 1822 and started the first free dispensary for indigent patients in South Africa. He led a scientific expedition into the interior and was able to indulge in his interests of natural history and anthropology. On several occasions, he was sent by governors on confidential missions to visit Bantu tribes beyond the frontier, such as his trip to Kaffraria in 1824 when he made copious notes on the customs of the Xhosa tribes. In 1825 the Governor of the Cape Colony, Lord Charles Somerset, nominated Smith as the first Superintendent of the South African Museum of natural history in Cape Town. In 1828 Smith was sent to Namaqualand by Lieutenant-Governor of the Eastern District of the Cape of Good Hope Richard Bourke to report on the Bushmen there. As a result, Smith wrote On the origin and history of the Bushmen in 1831. In the same year of 1831, there were rumours of serious unrest in the east, causing Governor Sir Lowry Cole to send Smith to Natal in January 1832. Here he interviewed Dingaan and reported back to Cole, arousing a great deal of interest in the business world of the Cape. It was mainly his report that caused Britain to annex Port Natal in 1844 and turn it into a Crown colony. Similarly in 1833 the reports of traders from North of the Orange River led to an 18-month-long expedition by Andrew to Basutoland, Kuruman, the headquarters of Mzilikazi and as far north as the Magaliesberg, Charles Davidson Bell going along as expedition artist. Smith returned with two of Mzilikazi's izinDuna who forged an alliance with the Cape Colony on behalf of their chief. Smith's Report of the expedition for exploring Central Africa was published in 1836. Except for two short reports that appeared after his return to Cape Town from the interior in 1836, no detailed account of his travels was ever published.
Although Smith's Diary, covering the period August 1834 to January 1836, was published (by the Van Riebeeck Society) in 1939-1940, and his Report (a "brief narrative summary") was published in Cape Town in the year it was written (1836), this volume, edited and with an introduction and notes by William F Lye (then professor of history at Utah State University), is based not only on this material but also Smith's later and formerly unpublished Journal, compiled and written between 1835 and 1838.
![]()
![]()
