Travels Through Central Africa to Timbuctoo; and Across the Great Desert, to Morocco, Performed in the Years 1824-1828. by CAILLIÉ, Réné

London, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830. Two volumes, 8vo. Original publisher's drab boards, printed lettering-pieces to spines, entirely uncut, several gatherings unopened; pp. 475, [4, publisher's advertisements]; xiv, [2, blank], 501, [2, publisher's advertisements], lithographic portrait frontispiece on India paper, folding aquatint view of Timbuktu, 2 large folding engraved maps (one with repaired tear, the other with a few spots), 4 wood-engraved plates; spines restored, a few spots here and there, one plate a bit more so, but otherwise a very clean and fresh copy internally, name of the Countess of Meath on front cover of volume I in ink. First English edition of the first account by a Westerner to travel to Timbuctoo and back. 'Before Caillié was 20 he had twice voyaged to Senegal and traveled through its interior. In 1824 he began to prepare for his journey to Timbuktu by learning Arabic and studying Islam. Posing as an Arab traveling to Egypt, he left the coast of West Africa in April 1827 and reached Timbuktu on April 20, 1828; his journey was interrupted along the way by five months of illness. He remained at his destination for about two weeks and then returned across the Sahara to France, via Morocco' (Encyclopaedia Britannica). It took another 25 years for another European to reach the city in Mali, the German explorer Heinrich Barth. Provenance: The Countess of Meath was a member of the Brabazon family, one of the wealthiest and most influential noble families of Ireland. See: Charlie English, The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu, pp. 99-108).