A Visit to the South African Gold Fields (1870)

By George Bottomley.

1870.

First Edition. Very rare. Lacking front cover and the 2 albumen prints. Sold as is.

Published by: Natal Printing Company "Herald" Office, Durban 1870. A very rare and highly fugitive booklet, an account of an expedition to the goldfields of the Tati (Tatin) in what is now Botswana, Southern Africa's first gold rush. The discovery there had been made by the explorer Karl Mauch, who announced it in a letter in the Transvaal Argus in December of 1867. This caused enormous excitement, but it transpired that the gold ore was low grade and not widely distributed, and the boom fizzled.

Bottomley travelled via Maritzburg, Harrismith, Potchefstroom and Rustenburg to the valley of the Limpopo and Matabeleland. Several of his companions died along the way (one of the mounted photographs is of their memorial; the other is of the government buildings in Durban). His account includes many mentions of the game he encountered along the way, along with detailed account of the gold workings.

No copies of this work have appeared at auction (ABPC, Rare Book Hub); OCLC shows no copies, and COPAC just a photocopy at the Bodleian. The book is listed in Mendelssohn (vol. 1,

p. 160, not mentioning the photographs), but there is no copy in the South African National Library.

132mm x 215mm x 20mm

R20,000