Matabele Land and the Victoria Falls.: A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Interior of South Africa from the Letters & Journals of the Late Frank Oates.

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.,, 1889. A family copy Second edition, expanded with new appendices and a preface. First published in 1881, this valuable account of Matabeleland and its flora and fauna is attractively illustrated from sketches and watercolour drawings by the author and his brother, William. This copy is from the libraries first of William and then later Robert Washington Oates, Frank's nephew. Frank Oates (1840-1875), accompanied by William (1841-1896), sailed from Southampton to Natal on 5 March 1873, hoping to see the Zambezi and explore countries to the north to study geography and zoology. The brothers fitted out their expedition in Maritzburg and travelled through Transvaal and Bechuanaland, visiting the Tati district. William returned to England and Frank continued, spending some time "in the Matabele (Ndebele) country north of the Limpopo River. Three attempts to proceed were frustrated by the weather and the opposition of the local people" (ODNB). Finally he arrived on the banks of the Zambezi December and made large collections of natural history specimens. Sadly, Oates contracted a fever and died shortly thereafter, just 80 miles north of the Tati River. The doctor and naturalist Benjamin Bradshaw attended to him and saw to the safety of his letters and field notes, later edited by his brother, Charles. The new appendices are on ethnology, ornithology, herpetology, entomology, and botany, with the accompanying natural history plates lithographed by J. G. Keulemans and R. Mintern. The Ibis, a quarterly journal of ornithology, lauded: "The collection was formed with the greatest care, and it is seldom that it falls to the lot of the naturalist to examine a series of birds in which the particulars of capture are so carefully noted on each specimen as in the present instance. For this reason alone, therefore, the collection is of great importance; but, besides this, it represents, without doubt, a very fair idea of the avifauna of the parts of the Transvaal and Matabele countries" (p. 170). Provenance: an Oates family copy, with the bookplates of William and Robert (1874-1958) on the front endpapers; also with the bookplate of Frank Oates posthumously pasted on the front flyleaf and an in memoriam bookplate on the half-title. Robert served in the First World War, later becoming an antique dealer and antiquarian bookseller. He established the Oates Memorial Museum and Library, commemorating his uncle Frank and his cousin Lawrence "Titus" Oates, who tragically perished at a young age during the "Terra Nova" expedition. Octavo. Original moderate yellow-green cloth, lettered and decorated in brown and gilt, green surface-paper endpapers, edges uncut. Stipple-engraved frontispiece of Oates on india paper, 6 chromolithographed plates, 14 lithographed natural history plates, all but one coloured, 2 wood-engraved plates and illustrations in the text, 4 folding maps ("Map of South Eastern Africa" bound at end with original wash colour); 2 additional illustrations of Oates's graves in England and Botswana pasted on p. 274; 8 pp. advertisements at end. Lower rear corner bumped, spine lightly rolled, very minor foxing to endpapers. An excellent copy. Czech, p. 210; Mendelssohn II, p.112; Troelstra, p. 321. The Ibis, vol. IV, 1882.