SPARRMAN André Voyage au Cap de Bonne-Espérance, et autour du Monde avec le capitaine Cook, et principalement dans le Pays des Hottentots et des Caffres… Traduit par M. Le Tourneur.

Mendelssohn, IV, 361.

First edition of this French translation.

Copy of the deluxe issue, reset in the larger quarto format.

"During the voyage with Cook, Sparrman had earned a little money translating a Swedish medical work into English, sufficient to finance an expedition of his own into the interior of South Africa. Sparrman set out overland from the Cape on 25.7.75 in the company of a South African named Immelman, paralleling the southern coast and visiting the regions of Swellendam, Mossel Bay and the country to the north of Port Elizabeth… During his travels he made the first study of Bushmen" (Howgego).

Sparmann's travel account was highly succesful and translated into various European languages. The French edition contains the most important number of engraved plates and is enlarged with the scientific report of Smeatman on termines ("Relation sur les termites, adressée à la Société royale de Londres, par M. Smeatman, en février 1781") which occupies pages 397-463 of the first volume.

Fine and broad margined copy; upper hinge to volume II partly split.