Jottings During the Cruise of H.M.S. Curacoa Among the South Sea Islands in 1865 with Numerous Illustrations and Natural History Notices

London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1873 viii, 487 pp with two fold-out chromo-lithographs tipped in. 44 B&W wood engravings, and 50 hand-coloured engravings of 'objects in natural history,' ie. birds, reptiles, fishes, shells and insects, each of these with a glasine tissue guard,. One 12" x 14" hand-colored fold-out map of the South Sea Islands bound in before index. Map has a short (3/4") tear next to binding, otherwise in excellent condition. The book has glue staining to endpapers, foxing to first few pages. Text is otherwise clean, tight and unmarked. Front hinge cracked but holding. Publisher's green cloth boards with gold-stamped outline of a canoe and gold-stamped titles along spine are rubbed at extremities with partial split to cloth along front hinge. Julius Lucius Brenchley (1816 - 1873) was a world-wide traveller and author from Maidstone, Kent. He visited United States, where he lived among indigenous people, Central and South America, North Africa, the Far East and Oceania. In 1865 he joined the Curacoa, a naval vessel then deployed to protect British interests in the Pacific including Solomon Islands, where Brenchley made a collection of more than 1,000 artefacts. He later published an account of the voyage: ‘Jottings During the Cruise of HMS 'Curacoa' Among the South Sea Islands in 1865’. His collection was divided between Maidstone Museum and the British Museum.. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.