Wanderings and Adventures in the Interior of Southern Africa [2 volumes complete]

London: Longman & Co, 1835. First Edition, First Printing. Very Good Hardcovers. Very Good/No Jacket.

Recased in original publisher's cloth with renewed endpages. Bindings tight and square. Text clean, light even toning. Moderate handling wear. Foxing to the perimeter of plates. First Edition, First Printing. 2 volumes: 8vo; 23 cm.; 9 inches tall; xii, 330; v, 358 pages. Illustrated with [12] steel engravings and a folded map at the end of volume 1. Each volume has a tissue-guarded frontispiece and engraved title page.

The Appendices, which extend to 213 pages, also 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, an interesting narrative of the wreck of the Grosvenor, and much valuable matter respecting the Kat River and other settlements in Kaffraria,and the Ka'ir outbreaks and wars up to this period. A Very Handsome Set of this Important Exploration Title.

Accounts of the author'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.

The author 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 appendix includes 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: I, 654]

REF: Mendelssohn II, p431/2. & Mendelssohn: I, 654; Royal Geographical Society of London, 1935 Volume V. 322.