Across Africa

Verney Lovett Cameron (1844-1894), author of this account, was the first European to cross Equatorial Africa, coast to coast and mostly on foot. His original mission was to search for the missing explorer David Livingstone, but soon after leaving Zanzibar (an island off Africa’s east coast) early in 1873, he learned that the great man had died. Curiosity drove him on; nearly three years later, he emerged on Africa’s west coast, in Angola, sick and exhausted but with a fabulous story to tell. His journal includes detailed social, ethnological, and geographical observations and an important account of the horrors of the continent-wide slave trade. These beautiful books, which bear the bookplate of the distinguished British lawyer John Dawson Mayne, are bound in red cloth and tan calf, the spine embossed with gilt designs, the inside covers and page edges marbled. Illustrations include a facsimile of the desperate letter Cameron received telling of Livingstone’s death and engravings of landscapes, wildlife, people (including slaves), dwellings, weapons, tools, and much more.