Voyage de Siam des peres Jesuites.: Envoyés par le Roy, aux Indes & à la Chine. Avec leurs observations astronomiques, & leurs remarques de physique, de géographie, d'hydrographie, & d'histoire. Enrichi de figures.

Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier,, 1687. With many arresting engravings First Amsterdam edition, second overall after the first published in Paris the previous year, with a intriguing contemporary provenance. This uncommon account of the author's first expedition to Siam via the Cape Colony is profusely illustrated with engravings including of a "large lizard", dragon boats, and the king of Siam riding an elephant in front of his supplicants. This copy is inscribed in French opposite the additional engraved title, "This book belongs to me, Jean Paul Veranj, this month of June 1701. Signed at Rome in the time of the conclave of you, monsieur, your very humble and obedient servant. At the moment when you have just ordered me the agreements between the house of M. the Governor and M. the Marquis de la Chape. May I not fail". Veranj's clerical superior ("Monsieur") was perhaps one of the 58 cardinals who met in Rome to elect Pope Clement XI in 1700. Guy Tachard (1651-1712) was one of six Jesuit fathers who set out from Brest on 3 March 1685 as part of the Marquis de Chaumont's mission from Louis XIV to the King of Siam. While his fellow Jesuits ultimately continued to China to establish the French mission in Peking, Tachard remained in Siam as the mission's geographer, returning to France in June 1866 with de Chaumont and the newly appointed Siamese ambassador to the French court. Tachard penned this account before returning to Siam on a second expedition. Part of the narrative concerns the mission's sojourn at the Cape Colony, where, despite Dutch suspicion of French designs in the region, they received a hospitable welcome from the governor, Simon van der Stel, and the Cape Commissioner Van Rheede. Tachard describes van der Stel as popular and efficient; they had long conversations and discussed the governor's expedition to Namaqualand and the plants and animals observed. While at the Cape, the Jesuits were given use of a house and a building from which to make astronomical observations. Local Catholics flocked to visit the Jesuits in their observatory where Tachard made a determination of the settlement's longitude. Duodecimo (159 x 101 mm). Recently bound to style in brown calf, spine lettered in gilt, compartments with foliate motifs, edges untrimmed and speckled red. Additional engraved title, 30 engraved illustrations, views, and maps (21 folding), engraving in text. Pagination error on p. 138 sometime corrected by hand, two identical library numerical ink stamps on title page verso, old ownership inscription partially washed on title page. Contents with foxing, toning, and light staining, significant browning at foot of pp. 93-165 and to a number of plates, couple of chips to inscribed leaf, two old tape repairs to plate facing p. 139. A good copy only. Howgego I T1; Mendelssohn vol. II, p. 461; Wing T96.