Rare Set of 4 travel books – South Africa – [John Barrow – Dutch ed. 1803-1805]

‘Reizen in de binnenlanden van het zuidlyk gedeelte van Afrika in de jare 1797 en 1798.’

Dutch translation of ‘Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa.’, by Barrow, John’.

Published by Francois Bohn 1803-1805

Haarlem, Bohn, 1803-1805. 4 vols. Half leather, in very good condition: a very nice set. 308+250+276+290 pag. Illustrated with 9 maps, 1 plate and 3 tables.

Very Rare.

Barrow accompanied Lord Macartney, as private secretary, on his mission to the Cape of Good Hope in 1797, being promoted to auditor general in 1798. “Macartney at once sent him on a double mission, viz. to reconcile the Kaffirs and Boers, and to obtain more accurate topographical knowledge of the colony, there being then no map which embraced one-tenth of it. In pursuit of these objects he traversed every part of the colony, and visited the several countries of the Kaffirs, Hottentots, and the Bosjesmen, performing ‘a journey exceeding one thousand miles on horseback, on foot, and very rarely in a covered wagon, and full half the distance as a pedestrian, and never except for a few nights sleeping under a roof’. He owed his appointment [as second secretary of the Admiralty] mainly to the ability he had shown at the Cape and in his history of the colony, with its unrivalled map” (DNB).