[WEST AFRICA] [SENEGAL] [THE GAMBIA] MOLLIEN, G.; T. E. Bowdish

Travels in the Interior of Africa, to the Sources of the Senegal and Gambia; Performed by Command of the French Government, in the Year 1818

London: Henry Colburn & Co., 1820. First Edition. First printing. Quarto (27cm). Half-bound in tan calf and marbled paper, rebacked with original spine laid down; brown endpapers; [xii],378,[2]pp; one page publisher's ads at rear; folding map and seven uncolored aquatint plates. With a vocabulary list at rear. Bookplate of Thomas Baskerville Mynors Baskerville, a Conservative MP in the 1840s. Rebacked, with expert leather reinforcements to board corners, edges rubbed, spine leather dry and cracking slightly, occasional foxing but generally tight and clean: Very Good.

First edition in English; the first French edition also published in 1820. Mollien succeeded in locating the sources of the the Corubal and the Gambia rivers, as well as two tributaries of the Senegal, the Bifang and the Félémé. However, the rainy season and dysentery forced him to end his travels there. This account of his journey "marked him as a gifted writer and shrewd observer, equally interested in geology, ethnology and native traditions" (Howgego). ABBEY Travel 273. HOWGEGO M51.

Price: $1,000.00

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