By Captain W. Cornwallis Harris
1969
De Luxe Edition, no.18 out of 200 copies.
Reproduced complete from the original edition of 1840/41
Introductory essay by Edward C. Tabler.
Zoological note by Richard Liversidge.
With additional illustrations.
Published by A.A. Balkema

Major Sir William Cornwallis Harris (baptised 2 April 1807 – died 9 October 1848) was an English military engineer, artist and hunter.

In June 1836, Harris arrived at Cape Town on the 1,467-ton Buckinghamshire and stayed for two years in order to recover from a fever. He was fortunate to meet Dr. Andrew Smith, freshly returned from a journey north on which he had visited Mzilikazi at Mosega. From the Cape, he arranged a hunting trip, which was to last from 1836 to 1837, to the Western Transvaal and Magaliesberg with William Richardson of the Bombay Civil Service, who had been a fellow passenger on the voyage.

Harris was one of the more notable of the early Victorian travellers, and his illustrations of the large African fauna were the first to have any claim to accuracy. He hunted on a ruthless scale, even as he wrote with passion about the regions he crossed, and painted the animals he encountered with great attention to detail. He was not an outstanding artist, but his paintings and sketches have great charm and spirit and have considerably enriched natural history art.

275mm x 272mm x 40mm

R2,750