Early South African Hunting, Beautifully Illustrated
HARRIS, William Cornwall.
The wild sports of southern Africa; being the narrative of a hunting expedition from the Cape of Good Hope, through the territories of the chief Moselekatse to the Tropic of Capricorn. London, Henry G. Bohn, 1852.
Large 8vo, pp. xvi, 359, [1 (blank)]; 26 hand-coloured full-page illustrations, 1 folding map; foxing and staining, heavier on opening pages and plates; overall good; rebound, with original red cloth spine and covers laid down, spine and upper cover decorated in gilt; some losses and staining to original cloth.
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The wild sports of southern Africa; being the narrative of a hunting expedition from the Cape of Good Hope, through the territories of the chief Moselekatse to the Tropic of Capricorn.
Fifth edition, with beautiful hand-coloured lithographic plates, recounting the author’s hunting expedition through southern Africa between 1836 and 1837: a ‘well-known and valuable work’ (Mendelssohn). ‘Harris journeyed to the Meritsane River where he encountered a herd of quaggas and brindled ‘gnoos’ he estimated at 15,000 head. He bagged eland and was attacked by lion in the region. Crossing the Mariqua River, he hunted ostrich and white rhinoceros. Entering the Cashan Mountains, he collected elephant, then proceeded to the Limpopo Valley where he hunted buffalo and hippopotamus, with additional sport after giraffe, black rhinoceros, sable, and lion. Harris’ work is valuable as it presents a detailed picture of the South African game fields prior to the growing pressure of civilization’ (Czech).
A first edition of Harris’ work was originally published in 1838 in Bombay under the title Narrative of an expedition; all subsequent editions were published as The wild sports of southern Africa. This, the fifth edition, retains the 26 lithographic plates which were first published in the third edition of 1841. As Czech therefore points out, ‘the third, fourth and fifth editions, in particular, are the most sought after of this famous African exploration and sporting work, due to the wonderful coloured plates of African game and scenery’. This edition also includes (at p. 333, rather than p. 357 as stated in the ‘Table of Contents’) Harris’ proposal to the ‘Geographical Society of Bombay’ volunteering to proceed on an expedition to penetrate ‘that great Inland Lake, the actual existence of which, between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, was first established by Dr. Smith’s expedition in 1853’; this proposal had first been published in the second edition of 1839.
Czech, p. 71; Hosken, p. 94; Mendelssohn I, pp. 686-688.