Hardcover
1864 · New York
by Speke, John Hanning
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1864. Hardcover. Very Good -. Hardcover. This is Captain John Speke's account of his third and last exploration of the Nile. Speke (1827 – 1864) was an English explorer and army officer who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first European to reach Lake Victoria. Accompanied by James A. Grant, with illustrations taken chiefly from drawings done by Captain Grant during the trip. Speke died on September 15, 1864 of a gun-shot wound. It was speculated that it was self-afflicted, but an inquest concluded that his death was accidental, a conclusion supported by his only biographer Alexander Maitland, though the idea of suicide has appealed to some. Much of Speke's journal of his last expedition in Africa is a description of the physical features of Africa's races, in whose condition he found "a strikingly existing proof of the Holy Scriptures." Living alongside the locals, Speke claimed to have found a "superior race" of "men who were as unlike as they could be from the common order of the natives" due to their "fine oval faces, large eyes, and high noses, denoting the best blood of Abyssinia" –; that is, Ethiopia. This "race" comprised many tribes, including the Watusi (Tutsi). Speke described their physical appearances as having retained – despite the hair-curling and skin-darkening effects of intermarriage – "a high stamp of Asiatic feature, of which a marked characteristic is a bridged instead of bridgeless nose." [Wikipedia]
Rebound in black cloth with titling in gilt to spine. Cloth is bumped and rubbed with light wear on the covers edges next to the fore-edge pages Newer pastedowns and free end pages. Title page is stained and darkened, and frontispiece portrait of Speke has darkened edges and a stain along the gutter on its back. Light occasional spotting throughout but text is still otherwise clean and legible. Unfortunately, the fold-out map of Eastern Equatorial Africa has been roughly torn out. Stiill a useful copy of this classic by Speke in almost very good condition. Measures 6x 9 inches. 590 pages plue publisher advertisements. TRAV/071625. (Inventory #: 38147)
Rebound in black cloth with titling in gilt to spine. Cloth is bumped and rubbed with light wear on the covers edges next to the fore-edge pages Newer pastedowns and free end pages. Title page is stained and darkened, and frontispiece portrait of Speke has darkened edges and a stain along the gutter on its back. Light occasional spotting throughout but text is still otherwise clean and legible. Unfortunately, the fold-out map of Eastern Equatorial Africa has been roughly torn out. Stiill a useful copy of this classic by Speke in almost very good condition. Measures 6x 9 inches. 590 pages plue publisher advertisements. TRAV/071625. (Inventory #: 38147)