From Cape to Cairo. The First Traverse of Africa from South to North. (1902)
From Cape to Cairo. The First Traverse of Africa from South to North. BY E S Grogan and A H Sharp.
Publisher: Hurst and Blackett, Limited, 1902. Colonial Edition. New and Revised Edition issued within two years of the first. Profusely illustrated throughout with two large folding coloured maps and 50 plates.
Good hardback with no jacket. Red cloth boards with titles in black. Boards have some marks, rubbing and bumping to edges, with some fading around edges to back cover. Spine is chipped and frayed with some loss to the cloth at both ends. Inscription in pencil to ffep and dated 1910.
Signed By A McCosh Clark, believed to be Archibauld Clark of Auckland, son of New Zealand author Kate Emma McCosh Clark. Scattered foxing to pages. Fold out maps are complete. One is very good with some creasing and a tear in the margin. The second map has a closed tear that goes across the map area for about 5cm.
Grogan and Sharp embarked on one of the most perilous treks in Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to Cairo, Egypt, on foot, establishing that Africa could ostensibly be crossed by railway. They traveled to the Zambezi, then through the lake districts of central Africa, on to the Upper Nile, to Khartoum and on to Cairo. Marching up the Pungwe, the party hunted buffalo and lion. On the Chiperoni, they bagged sable and rhinoceros, while in the Rusisi Valley near Lake Albert, the pair succeeded in bagging several elephant. Grogan ran into particular difficulty with the Dinkas and Nuers in the upper reaches of the Nile before finally making his way to Cairo.