Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, and of a Voyage To and From That Country, in the Years 1816 and 1817; containing an account of the most interesting transactions of Lord Amherst's embassy to the court of Pekin, and observations ....... by Abel, Clarke - 1819

London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1819. Second edition, quarto, pp xvi, 420, with 10 plain litho plates, 7 hand coloured aquatint plates, 4 maps (of which 3 are folding), errata leaf present, some marking foxing and thumbing throughout, margins frayed of one plate, contemporary marbled boards, rubbed, a later calf spine, endpapers marked. Three small Penzance Library stamps on the title page, partially removed, but no other markings. [Possibly lacking one plate ? This frequently occurs in this work.] [One of the main accounts of the period, during which a large number of plants were both discussed and collected. Clarke Abel, 1780 - 1826) was a British surgeon and naturalist. He accompanied Lord Amherst on his mission to China as the embassy's chief medical officer and naturalist, on the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks. The mission was Britain's second unsuccessful attempt to establish diplomatic relations with China and involved travelling to the capital Pekin (Beijing) and the famous botanical gardens of Fa Tee near Canton. While in China, Abel collected specimens and seeds of the plant that carries his name, Abelia chinensis. However a shipwreck and an attack by pirates on the way back to his home in Britain caused him to lose all of his specimens. The book gives a detailed account of the collection's misfortunes. Fortunately, he had left some specimens with Sir George Staunton at Canton, who was kind enough to return them to him; living specimens of the Chinese Abelia that we know today were later introduced by Robert Fortune in 1844. In March 1819 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Abel was the first Western scientist to report the presence of the orangutan on the island of Sumatra; the Sumatran Orangutan Pongo abelii is named for him. He went on to become the surgeon-in-chief to Lord Amherst when the earl was appointed Governor-general of India. Abel was also the first scientist to describe the Chiru or Tibetan Antelope, in 1826.]. Second edition. Half-Leather. Good.