A Walk Across Africa: or Domestic Scenes from my Nile Journal

Grant, Captain James Augustus.

A Walk Across Africa or Domestic Scenes from my Nile Journey. London, William Blackwood and Sons, 1864. First edition, 8vo, Original green cloth. PRESENTATION copy. Folding map (17 ½" x 35 ½"). The binding's corners have been expertly repaired from being bumped. Some slight shelf wear on the front cover. Half-title is present. The text is clean with no markings other than the presentation inscription, and some tape residue on the dedication and table of contents pages. Small top corner piece of page 443 missing, no loss of text (see photo). Slight darkening to the spine and some wear to the gilt decoration on the front cover. Map in the rear pocket is clean and has no tears. 39 pages of the publisher's advertisements follow the text.

Grant's account of his journey across Eastern Equatorial Africa with John Speke to Victoria Nyanza to find the source of the Nile. This was Speke's second attempt to find the source, and in 1859 he invited Grant to join him on the Royal Geographical Society Nile expedition.

Speke published his better known "What Led to the Discovery of the Nile" about the journey and Grant produced his account to supplement Speke's. Grant was more interested in describing the natives as he writes about "the ordinary life and pursuits, the habits and feelings of the natives". Grant also produced a later work that described the botany encounterd during the expedition. Grant's narrative is scarce in commerce. (DNB)

What makes this near fine copy special is the heartfelt inscription on the half-title to his young daughter, "To my dear little good "Mary Augusta" with her father's fondest love 1st of May 1873 J Grant".