LAKE NGAMI; or, Explorations and Discoveries, During Four Years' Wanderings in the Wilds of South Western Africa by Andersson Charles John - 1856

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856. First American Edition, same year as the English edition. With a profusion of illustrations throughout, both in the text and as full-page plates. royal 8vo, publisher's orginal brown cloth, pictorially illustrated in gilt on upper and lower covers, with blind-tooled borders and center panels. Gilt lettered spine. xviii, 521, (2 ads) pp. A very handsome, unusually well preserved copy in the original and scarce cloth, internally clean. FIRST EDITION, AMERICAN ISSUE, same year as the English. Not in Abbey. "Few, if any, books give so full and complete an account of Namaqualand, Damaraland, and the Ovampo country, and the description of these countries is absolutely unequaled" (Mendelssohn). Wood draws particular attention to the section on the natural history of the ostrich (pp. 253-69). There is much about hunting, but the work is not in Schwerdt. Two expeditions are described, one in company with Francis Galton to Nangoro's Werft in the Ovampo country, the other by himself to Lake Ngami. Their courage and endurance was phenomenal.