Travels in the Interior of South Africa, Comprising Fifteen Years' Hunting and Trading. With Journeys Across the Continent from Natal to Walvish Bay, and Visits to Lake Ngami and the Victoria Falls
London: Bell & Daldy, 1868.
First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Two-volume set. xiii (4), 454, (2); viii, (4), 480pp. With 2 frontispieces, 25 woodcut illustrations and 2 folding maps. Bound by John Bumpus, Oxford. Chapman (b. 1831 in Cape Town) traveled extensively in the interior of southern Africa as a trader, hunter, and explorer. In 1853, he reached the Zambezi and narrowly missed discovering Victoria Falls before David Livingstone. This work describes his second expedition to the Zambezi (1860-64), during which he and fellow explorer and artist Thomas Baines hoped to conduct a full examination of the middle and lower reaches of the river to assess its navigability and viability as a commercial route. They traveled from Cape Town to Walvis Bay by sea, then by ox-wagon across the Kalahari, taking 16 months to reach the Zambezi . Thomas Baines spent several days sketching and painting Victoria Falls, providing the first images of the natural wonder to reach the outside world. Although the expedition was hindered by illness and failed to reach the river's mouth, it was successful in gathering information about previously little-known terrain-in part because it was one of the first expeditions to carry a stereoscopic camera. More than 140 of Chapman's photographic studies of the landscape and wildlife of what is now Namibia were shown at the 1867 World Exposition in Paris. Mendelssohn p. 321 says that "few South African books give better descriptions of the sport of the country and the habits and customs of the native races inhabiting the vast areas traversed. See also Czech, p. 61. Leather scuffed at the extremities. One map backed in linen, the other torn and repaired along a fold, but complete. Overall quite clean and sound.
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