Beschreibung:

Portraits of Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa, delineated from life in their native haunts, during a hunting expedition from the Cape Colony as far as the tropic of Capricorn, in 1836 and 1837, with sketches of the field sports.
London: published for the proprietor, [etc.], 1840. Folio (536 x 360 mm). Lithographic additional title with hand-colored vignette, 30 hand-colored lithographic plates after Harris, numerous uncoloured lithographic vignettes. Modern red morocco gilt by J.P. Gray & Son of Cambridge, covers panelled in gilt, spine in six compartments with raised bands, lettered in the second and fourth, the others decorated in gilt, gilt turn-ins, g.e., red cloth slip-case. Condition : some light spotting and old staining, slight restoration to margins of title, 2 text leaves and 7 plates, damage occasionally just touching image area. “one of the most important and valuable of the large folio works on south african fauna” (Mendelssohn). Harris spent two years at the Cape colony, from 1835 to 1837, in a successful attempt to restore his health (which had suffered as a result of his service as a Captain in the East India Company's Bombay Engineers). Following the advice of the naturalist Dr. Andrew Smith, he and Richard Williamson left from Algoa Bay and travelled in a north-easterly direction, via Somerset and the Orange River until they reached the kraals of the famous Matabele chief Moselikatze. The chief took a liking to the travellers and allowed them to return using a previously closed route. On his return to Bombay, Harris published his first account of the journey in 1838 ( Narrative of an Expedition in Southern Africa , octavo, with a map and 4 plates). The book was well received, and encouraged by the favourable reception, Harris went on to publish the present work with first-hand sketches, and notes of the game and wild animals he had encountered in his travels. Abbey Travel I, 335; Mendelssohn I, p.688; Nissen ZBI 1843; Schwerdt I, p.231; Tooley 247.