Search Results: Travel from Christison Rare Books, IOBA SABDA

(Cape Town: R. Beerman Publishers, no date). 8vo; original blue boards; pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 230 + (ii); illustrations in text. Dustwrapper rather edgeworn and a little rubbed, with tape reinforcing on reverse side, at head of spine; small pen mark on front free endpaper; regular light browning throughout. Good condition. "And so, if this book is to have a message, it is this - and I make no apology for it although it is a very simple message - that the good things, which are everywhere, are a safe and steadfast meeting-ground for all people who have eyes to see, and that the magic has not yet gone from a shrinking world, nor will it though jet planes and space-ships and even stranger things become a part of our daily lives." .

(Amsterdam: Time-Life Books, 1984) 705415104. "Classics of Exploration" series, text facsimile of the 1810 2nd edition. 8vo; original padded leatherette blocked in red and gilt; a.e.g.; marbled endpapers; pp. (viii) + 472 + (iv); several plates in colours; silk marker; folding map. Fine condition. An account of the life of celebrity Irish pickpocket George Barrington, his transportation to Australia, and elevation to a position of responsibility in the penal colony, before succumbing to insanity, which is euphemistically referred to as 'infirmity' in the book. The work is now known to have been ghostwritten by someone other than Barrington, and includes substantial elements of plagiarism, borrowing particularly from John Hunter's 'Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island'. .

(Durban: Killie Campbell Africana Library / Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1990) 0869805290. 232 x 150 mm; laminated pictorial wrappers. Translated by Fleur Webb, introduced and indexed by Stephanie J. Alexander and Colin De B. Webb; pp. xxxii + (xii) + 359, incl. index; facsimile frontis., title page, and some preliminaries from the original French edition; map; illustrations after those in the original edition. Spine, and adjacent section of upper cover sunned; crease to top fore-corner of upper cover; a little light foxing. Very good condition. "To South Africa in 1838 came Adulphe Delegorgue, a young French naturalist with a passion for information, a keen eye and a ready wit ... and a mighty elephant gun. The first volume of his famous Travels describes his brief journeyings in the Cape Colony and the early part of his several years of hunting and specimen-collecting in Natal and Zululand. Fleur Webb's lively translation allows English readers, for the first time, to… Read More

(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983). 198 x 128 mm; pictorial wrappers; pp. 218; map. Slightly rubbed; pages a bit browned and foxed. Good. "Humorous, trenchant, perceptive and redolant with music, magic and dance, this is the account of a young man's odyssey through the heart of primeval Africa." .

(Cape Town: Struik, 1980) 0869771280. 4to; original brown cloth, with gilt lettering to spine, and gilt emblem to upper cover; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 280; liberally illustrated with full-colour photographs. Dustwrapper rubbed and edgeworn, with some tape repairs to reverse; some damp-rippling to top edges of leaves. Good. "The authoritative text, based on up-to-date research, is integrated, through thought-provoking captions, with magnificent photographs which underscore the environmental and ecological themes that are at the heart of this book." .

(Durban: Art Publishers, 2007) 1919688684. Oblong 4to; original black boards, lettered in blind to spine and upper cover; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 180; lavishly illustrated with beautiful monochrome images of South African settings. Earlier owner's name on front free endpaper. Fine condition. "Bruce Mortimer invites you to find peace away from busy detail and vivid colour, in this bold yet subtle monochrome testimony to our diverse Southern African landscape. Encounter insightful visual journeys of the soul, intertwined with simple but profound words, expanding our awareness of light and shade, line and form, subject and viewer, time and tide. Discover the inspiration of Africa." .

(Pretoria: Protea Boekhuis, 2017) 9781485304708. 8vo; original olive-green boards; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 267, incl. index. Fine condition. Afrikaans text. "In Afskeid van Europa, wat as Karel Schoeman se laaste reisbeskrywing bedoel is, is aantekeninge oor twee kort besoeke aan 'n aantal Europese stede saamgevat. Dit behels 'n afskeid van Amsterdam en Berlyn, 'n eerste kennismaking met Dresden, 'n nadere kennismaking met Salzburg, en 'n meer uitgebreide verkenning van Wene." .

(London: Robert Hale, 1954). 8vo; original red cloth, lettered in gilt on spine; price-clipped pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 208; maps; plates. Dustwrapper a little edgeworn, with earlier owner's short tape repair to reverse; tape marks to free endpapers; some foxing. Good condition. "During three expeditions to the headwaters of the Amazon, Lewis Cotlow lived and made friends with the primitive tribes of Ecuador and Peru. But his main goal was the Jivaro head-hunters, and in this thrilling account of his journeys and adventures, he describes their costumes, their homes, their food, jokes, dances, ceremonials and their history. He treated these primitive people as fellow human beings, won their respect, and as a result was able to see and photograph rituals probably never recorded before. Never in serious danger from the tribes, he yet had many narrow escapes from animals, mountain streams and jungle-hopping planes. His narrative is therefore full both of excitement and of first-rate… Read More

(Cape Town: A.A. Balkema, for the South African Museum, 1975) 0869610694. Subtitle reads: An authentic narrative of travels and discoveries, the manners and customs of the Native tribes, and the physical nature of the country. Edited with an introduction and notes by William F. Lye. With contemporary illustrations by Charles Davidson Bell. 4to; original brown cloth, lettered in gilt on spine, with gilt publisher's device to upper cover; pictorial dustwrapper; pp. xii + 323, incl. index; full-colour plates; map; monochrome illustrations in text. Dustwrapper slightly edgeworn and partially sunned, with earlier owner's paper tape reinforcing to reverse side; top fore-corner of upper board slightly turned; neat gift inscription to front free endpaper; endpapers and edges lightly browned. Very good condition. 'This is a record of one of the most significant accounts of African exploration to have been written in the nineteenth century: it is not only of great potential value to researchers… Read More

(Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1955). Volume 36 in the Van Riebeeck Society's First Series. 8vo; original cloth; pp. (xii) + 253, incl. index; some plates; illustrations in text; folding map. Edges, endpapers and outermost leaves quite foxed, occasional fox spot elsewhere. Good to very good condition. "There are in the history of South Africa few official expeditions about which less is known than that of Dr. Andrew Smith to the Zulu monarch, Dingane, in 1832. The reason for this probably lies in the fact that the real motive for the expedition, which had very far-reaching results, was as far as possible kept secret, and any official report that may have been made by its leader was either delivered verbally or, if written, was treated as confidential and therefore never made public. No official reference to it is to be found in either our South African Archives or in the Public Record Office in London, and no report of it exists in either institution." .

(London, Cassell and Company, 1974). 4to; laminated pictorial dustwrapper a little edgeworn; original green cloth; endpapers slightly foxed; pp. 256, including index; numerous black-and-white and colour plates. Very good condition. "Antarctica - 51/2 million square miles of windswept ice - is the most desolate, yet in some ways the most beautiful area on earth. Its exploration has been a unique challenge: a contest between nature at her most awe-inspiring and man at his most inquisitive." .

(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985). 8vo; original blue boards; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. x + (iv) + 206, incl. index; 2 maps. Bottom fore-corners of boards very slightly bumped; lower panel of dustwrapper rippled, as from fluid spill. Very good condition. Foreword by Sir Peter Scott. "During his 5,000-mile voyage aboard the British Antarctic Survey vessel the John Biscoe, the author had ample opportunity to appreciate the value of the scientific work being undertaken as well as to marvel at the continent's awesome physical beauty and the profusion of its wildlife. Seals, penguins, albatross and petrels abound, while the seas are rich in living resources ranging from krill - the tiny crustacean at the base of the whole Antarctic food chain - to the great whales themselves. The author believes that the protection of Antarctica's special environment ranks alongside the other great challenges of our time, such as conservation of the tropical rain forests, control of… Read More

(Cambridge: British Antarctic Survey, 1993). BAS Miscellaneous Series, Sheet No. BAS (Misc.) 7. Colour, 15-panel map of Antarctica, measuring 753 x 920 mm once opened, and 250 x 185 mm fully folded. The scale is 1:10 000 000. Very good condition. "This 1:10 000 000 scale map is a derivative product of the Antarctic Digital Database Project (ADDP). The preparation of the first seamless digital map of Antarctica was co-ordinated in the UK by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) and World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), under the auspices of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and its Working Group on Geodesy and Geographic Information. ... The seamless map of Antarctica has been prepared from cartographic material published in eleven nations." .

(Cape Town: Struik, 1979) 0869771183. 4to; original dark green boards, lettered in gilt on spine and in white on upper cover; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. 175 + (i), incl. index; map; liberally illustrated with full-colour photographs. Boards slightly shelf-rubbed; some fox spots to endpapers. Very good condition. "This is a story of a revolution in knowledge, and of the men who struggled against the winds, the monstrous seas and the searing ice to explore this last continent so that man might know what lies at the bottom of the world. It is also the story of the amazing life of the far south - a bird that circles the world for three years before making landfall; a seal that dies of rotten teeth; a penguin that lays its egg in the darkness of the polar night. Here, too, is the drama of two 'boom-and-bust' industries - the fur seals and the whales. Now a third industry is attracting the attention of the world. Krill. Already the sound of argument is heard ... Has man learnt… Read More

(Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2010) 9781868423682. 233 x 153 mm; laminated pictorial wrappers; pp. vii + (i) + 345; map; colour plates. Some foxing to edges and outermost leaves. Very good condition. "Riaan Manser rewrote the definition of determination when he cycled unaided over 37 000km around Africa. ... Riaan set another world first in 2009 when he became the first person to circumnavigate Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island, by kayak. This incredible journey, 5000km in a little under a year, was considerably more demanding, both physically and mentally. Daily, Riaan had to conquer extreme loneliness, while ploughing through treacherous conditions such as cyclones, pounding surf and and unrelenting sun that, combined with up to ten hours in salt water, was literally pickling his body. The journey brought memorable encounters with Madagascar's marine life - humpback whales breaching metres from his path, giant leatherback turtles gliding alongside him and sharks… Read More

(Johannesburg: The Automobile Association of South Africa, 1935). 184 x 122 mm; printed wrappers; pp. 256; several map sheets; some photographs; adverts. Wrappers a little worn and curled; trace of curl to corners of outermost leaves; earlier owner's pencilled distance calculations to margins of some map sheets. Good to very good condition. "The continued progress of the Automobile Association of South Africa has made the production and distribution of this new Handbook necessary. Similar publications distributed in the past bore a provincial character, i.e., they were adapted to the specific needs of members resident in the Transvaal, Natal, etc. This Handbook is the first A.A.S.A. publication of its kind, built up on a broad, national basis. It will be of equal use and interest to all South African motorists, no matter where they reside and where they travel in South Africa and South West Africa." .

(London: Macmillan, 1987) 0333543696. Translated by Stacey Knecht. 8vo; original black boards, lettered in gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper (housed in removable protector); pp. (vi) +231. Dustwrapper lightly sunned on spine panel; front free endpaper removed; earlier owner's name signed on half-title; trace of foxing and browning. Good. "Fascinated from childhood by the enigmatic figure of her uncle, a Catholic missionary in Africa who returned only for short leaves bearing unfamiliar presents, Lieve Joris set out on board the Fabiolaville to the former Belgian Congo, the modern Zaïre of the ubiquitous President Mobutu. The author describes equally vividly the remnants of Zaïre's colonial past, the mission stations and the white expatriate community - many of whom ignore as far as possible the country in which they live - and the realities of modern Zaïre. From the chaos of Kinshasa to the remote villages of the interior, she falls for the charm of the… Read More

(New York: Doubleday, 2013) 9780385534222. 8vo; original green boards, lettered in gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. xiv + (ii) + 331, incl. index; plates. Fine condition. 'Paul du Chaillu wasn't an established Victorian explorer but rather a naive young man determined to gain entrance into the elite halls of science and to have the adventure of a lifetime. His expedition into a region labelled at the time only as "terra incognita" was woefully under-equipped, but when Du Chaillu marched into this equatorial wilderness in 1856, he wanted to bag a beast that, according to legend, was nothing short of a monster. ... Grand in scope, rich in detail, and propulsively readable, Between Man and Beast combines Du Chaillu's amazing journey with the epic tale of a world hovering on the sharp edge of transformation.' .

(Cape Town: privately published, 1998) 0620231688. Signed on the title page by the author James Walton. An edition limited to 200 copies. 4to; laminated pictorial boards; pp. vi + 47; photographs; line drawings. Fine condition. "During the years 1943 and 1944 I was stationed at Mhow in Central India and this afforded me ample opportunity to visit and record the activities of several of the depressed classes living in the surrounding area, which was formerly the kingdom of Malwa. From the 8th century onwards Malwa was under the rule of the Paramara kings but in the beginning of the 13th century they were overthrown by the Musalmans, who commenced to establish themselves in the splendid Vindlyan City of Mandu. ... The following account of some of the depressed classes of Malwa was written largely in 1944 and presents only the conditions at that time. No attempt has been made to bring it up-to-date. All the photographs were taken by James Walton with a Box Brownie camera and all drawings were… Read More

(London: Unwin Hyman, 1988) 0049100866. 8vo; original green boards, lettered in gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. vii + (i) + 232; line drawings as head-pieces; map. Trace of foxing. Very good condition. "Beyond the Pyramids is a dazzling chronicle of travels thorugh a landscape strewn with incongruities; a landscape peopled by a vivid supporting cast of intriguing characters, whose stories all form part of Kennedy's pungently funny, compulsively entertaining, yet ultimately serious portrait of Egypt today." .