New Light on Livingstone's Last Journey. by DEBENHAM, Frank - 1954

London: Edward Stanford, Royal Geographical Society, 1954. 8vo. 19 pages combined, including in-text sketch maps, plus black and white plates for illustration. Original condition with blue wrappers, titles to front, and containing all the ads. This is a complete issue, containing other accounts as well, seldom found in such good and original condition. A probing analysis examines David Livingstone's last journey, primarily concerned with Livingstone's fateful navigational error made in the treacherous 'Bangweolo' Swamps, one of the world's greatest wetland systems situated in the upper Congo River basin in Zambia. Compelling entries from Livingstone's diary enable Debenham to piece together what the latter describes as an obsession - Livingstone's certainty, confirmed by 'reliable sources' of the location of the 'springs of the Nile' - and the mistakes ensuing from a misunderstanding of Lake Bangweolo's geographical features. In retracing Livingstone's steps, he discusses Chief Matipa with whom Livingstone arranged canoe fare across Lake Bangweolo, illnesses borne, encounters with a major chief of the Lupososhi district called Chungu, problems arising from inclement weather, and Livingstone's melancholic last days.. First Edition.