Beschreibung:

West Indies.- Gage (Thomas) The English-American his Travail by Sea and Land: Or, a New Survey of the West-India's, Containing a Journall of Three Thousand and Three Hundred Miles within the Main Land of America, first edition, title within woodcut border, woodcut initials and decorations, title fore-margin trimmed, just touching border, title with 2 small repairs, affecting 1 letter, and 2 tears to inner margin, occasional browning or light staining, a few short tears to margins, contemporary calf, rebacked, extremities worn, rubbed, [Hill 665; Sabin 26298; Wing G109], small folio, by R. Cotes, and are to be sold by Humphrey Blunden at the Castle in Cornhill, and Thomas Williams at the Bible in Little Britain, 1648. ⁂ "The English-American his Travail by Sea and Land... was the first book by an English writer - in fact, the first book not by a Habsburg subject - portraying daily life in Spanish America... Gage took from others his account of the conquest of Mexico; wholly his own were the strong narrative line and his gift for observation. He wrote of the volcanoes overlooking Antigua (Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango) and the bustle of Portobello when the treasure fleet was in, with silver ingots piled in the street like paving-stones. He zestfully recalled the cuisine of the New World - the tortillas, beans, and tamales of the poor, the strange new fruits of the Indian market, and delicacies like the iguana. To chocolate, with an addict's obsessiveness, he devoted an entire chapter. He denounced the blending of Mayan ceremony and Catholic rites, but seldom condescended to his Indian parishioners, whom he found civil, gentle, industrious, and long-suffering." - ODNB.