Burton, Richard Francis

8vo. Half-title, 2 maps, 4 colored lithographed plates; some foxing primarily to plates. Original blindstamped orange cloth, brown endpapers with printed adverts on paste-downs; spine rebacked but original preserved.

Casada 35; Penzer 60-63

FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE. Burton's seminal account of his exploration of Somaliland and the forbidden city of Harar in 1854-1855. Speke was to form part of the expedition, but failed in his initial object of inspecting the Wadi Nogul. Burton's patronising allusion to this failure appears in Appendix 1 of this work, a selective condensation of Speke's journal, later to be a fuel for their antagonism: “He is ignorant of the Muslim faith... Not knowing either the Arabic or the Somali tongue, he was forced to communicate with the people through the medium of his dishonest interpreter and Abban” (p.503). It was on this expedition, while camped at Berberah, that Burton received his famous spear wound to the face. Speke received eleven spear wounds.