A Narrative of Travels in Northern Africa in the Years 1818, 19 and 20.
1821
First edition.
By Capt G.F Lyon
In 1818, he was sent along with Joseph Ritchie by Sir John Barrow to find the course of the Niger River and the location of Timbuktu. The expedition was underfunded, lacked support and because the ideas of John Barrow departed from Tripoli and thus had to cross the Sahara as part of their journey.
A year later, due to much officialdom they had only got as far as Murzuk where they both fell ill. Ritchie never recovered and died there, but Lyon survived and travelled a little further around the region. Exactly a year to the day he left, he arrived back in Tripoli, the expedition being a complete failure.
Folding map frontis.
17 hand coloured lithographs. Plate on page 298 in facsimile.
Rebound in crimson Morocco leather.
R25,000