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Author: Salt, Henry
Title: A Voyage to Abyssinia and Travels into the Interior of that Country...in the years 1809 and 1810
Place Published: London
Publisher:Printed for F.C. and J. Rivington
Date Published: 1814
Description:

xi, [4], 506, lxxv pp. Illustrated with 27 plates and 7 maps, of which 5 are folding and 1 is hand colored. (4to) 34.5x27.5 cm (13¾x10¾"), full calf with black morocco spine label, titled and ruled in gilt. First Edition.

Henry Salt (1780- 1827) first set out for the East at age twenty-two in the company of George Annesley (Viscount Valencia) whom he served as secretary, draughtsman, and companion. Annesley's tour aboard an East Indian vessel included stops at the Cape of Good Hope, the Red Sea ports, and India. Later he published his Voyages and Travels to India (1809) in which Salt's illustrations were featured. On his first visit to the country, Salt was dispatched by Annesley on a mission to establish trade relations with various Ethiopian potentates. Later, after a sojourn in England, Salt set out "under orders" once again for Abyssinia with the intention of establishing diplomatic and trade relations with Ras Wolde Selassie who, as it turned out, was pre-occupied with the prosecution of a local conflict and unable to meet with Salt. Salt turned then to reviewing and correcting (or updating) James Bruce's reports of his earlier travels in the region. Salt returned to England with a collection of various animals and plants and in 1814 published his Voyage to Abyssinia which we offer here. Returning once again to Africa, this time to Egypt, where he had been appointed Consul General, Salt served for the next dozen years as collector, agent, and conduit for the British Museum which had begun collecting artefacts of early Egyptian culture (the head of Rameses II, Sarcophagus of Set I).The Frankels' catalogue (Port Elizabeth, South Africa, December 1952), at whose sale this copy last changed hands, describes it as "a pleasing account of the Cape of Good Hope".

Front cover detached and subsequently repaired, wear to edges and spine, large chip to leather at base of spine; some internal toning and foxing; overall good.