Park,M. Lot n° 1508

Travels in the interior districts of Africa: performed in the years 1795, 1796 and 1797. With an account of a subsequent mission to that country in 1805. To which is prefixed an account of the life of Mr. Park. A new edition with an appendix by Major Rennell. 2 vols. London, Murray 1815-16. 4°. With gest. portrait, 4 gest. folding maps, 5 gest. plates and 1 notated plate on both sides and some woodblocks in the text. XVIII pp, 1 leaf, 458 (recte: 460) pp; 5 pp, CXXX pp, 1 leaf, 219 pp. Damaged. Old and new paperback. Gay 2788; Embacher 225; Paulitschke, Erforschungen, 162 f.: "The great merit of Mungo Park is to have determined the southern border of the Sahara on his first voyage, to have opened the way to the Sudan through the west by his second voyage, and to have brought the first exact knowledge of the Niger and thus of the interior of West Africa to Europe. Not little interest had for the geographers also the hypothesis put up by Maxwell, supported by Park's authority, according to which the Niger does not have its mouth into the ocean in the gulfs of Benin, but flows inland and unites with the Congo". - Besides the report of the first voyage, vol. I contains the appendix "Geographical illustrations of Africa" by Major Rennell; vol. II, in addition to the first edition of the "journal" of the second voyage, during which Park died in 1806, the first biography of Park, plus documents and the diaries of Parks' African companions, Isaaco and Amadi Fatouma. - Partly waterstained, 2 maps with larger tears, partly stained, N.a.T. - bookplate.