The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and explorations of the Nile sources. With maps, illustrations, and portraits [...].

2 vol., 8vo: xxx-395, ix-[1-1 bl.]-384 pp.; 37 pl. (tear in fold. map).

Contemp. green gilt-decor. cloth, flat gilt-titled spines.

First edition by the English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist S.W. Baker (1821-1893). Ill. with an engr. portr.-front. (vol. 1) and a tinted lithogr. front. (vol. 2), 35 pl. of which 2 coloured maps (one fold.) and one pl. "Skirmish with the natives" in vol. I (facing p. 341), not mentioned in the list of ill. And with one loosely inserted map: "Map of the route adopted by Captain Speke & Grant" from "What led to the discovery of the source of the Nile", 1864. Baker started his explorations accompanied by his Hungarian wife in 1861 to discover the source of the White Nile. In 1863 at Gondokro he met Speke and Grant, two travellers with the same purpose. They had just reached Victory Lake. They told Baker the rumours there should be another great lake farther to the west. And so Baker and his wife, as the first Europeans, sighted on 14 March 1864 the great lake and named it Albert Nyanza (Lake Albert). They also discovered the Murchison Falls, but could not explore the whole of the lake. Baker's writings contributed a lot to bring to Europe a picture of Africa as it really was. He was an honoured man in the great imperial tradition of the Victorian age.
Ref. Printing and the Mind of Man 357. - Gay 2722.
Prov. C.F. Hyatt (label).