THE WILD SPORTS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA by Capt. William Cornwallis Harris (1839) - FIRST EDITION

                                                                                                               THE WILD SPORTS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

Being the narrative of an expedition from the Cape of Good Hope through the territories of the Chief Moselekatse to the Tropic of Capricorn.

FIRST UK EDITION, published by John Murray 1839, hardcover, half leather binding with raised spine and morocco label with gilt text, marbled boards, elephant frontispiece engraving, 6 other plates, all present, folding map, 12.7 cms x 19.5 cms x 2.9 cms, black label affixed to inside of front board, written number to lower margin of title page, endpapers separated at hinge, otherwise condition: very good. 

The folding map  Exhibiting the relative positions of the emigrant farmers and the native tribes, May 1837 compiled by the author with the route of his travels outlined in red"

An earlier publication "Narrative of an Expedition into Southern Africa" was printed in Bombay in 1838, this is the first UK edition of the following year. 

 This edition contains the Proposal of Captain Harris to the Geographical Society of Bombay, volunteering to proceed on an expedition to penetrate to that great Inland Lake, the actual existence of which, between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, was first established by Dr. Smith's expedition in 1853. In a postscript to the Introduction some particulars are given of Retief's massacre, together with his party, by Dingan, and of the efforts of the colonial authorities to put an end to the mania of emigration on the part of the colonial farmers. ( South African Bibliography,Mendelssohn  volume one, page 688)

also Africana Notes and News, Volume XII