uncharted waters
BAIKIE, William Balfour.
Narrative of an exploring voyage up the rivers Kwóra and Bínue (commonly known as the Niger and Tsádda) in 1854 …
London, John Murray, 1856.
8vo, pp. xvi, 456; with half-title, frontispiece, vignette to title-page, 1 folding plan of the steamship ‘Pleiad’, and 1 folding map of the rivers Kwóra and Bínue by John Arrowsmith; somewhat browned, small tear to fore-edge of title repaired with tape, small marginal tears to plan and map (repaired); overall good in later blue morocco and blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt; a little rubbed; stamp of the ‘Church Missionary Society Library’ to half-title and title-page, a few marginal pencil annotations.
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Narrative of an exploring voyage up the rivers Kwóra and Bínue (commonly known as the Niger and Tsádda) in 1854 …
First edition recounting an expedition along previously uncharted waters of the Niger under the captaincy of the maritime naturalist and surgeon William Balfour Baikie. ‘The influence of Sir Roderick Murchison procured [Baikie] the post of surgeon and naturalist to the Niger expedition of 1854, and on the death of the captain at Fernando Po, Baikie succeeded to the command of the Pleiad, the exploring vessel. This first successful voyage, penetrating 250 miles higher up the Niger than had before been reached, is described by Baikie in his Narrative of an Exploring Voyage’ (DNB) – which Baikie published upon his return to England in 1856.
‘After spending some months in arranging his African collections … Baikie left England in 1857 on a second expedition, in which the Pleaid was wrecked, and the other explorers returned to England, and left him to carry on the exploration alone. He bought a site – Lukoja – at the confluence of the Quorra and Benue, and soon collected a considerable native settlement, over which he held sway and where he officiated in every capacity … Before five years were over he had opened up the navigation of the Niger, made roads, established a regular market for native produce, collected vocabularies of numerous African dialects, and translated parts of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer into Hausa. He died on his way home, on a well-earned leave of absence, at Sierra Leone on 12 Dec. 1864, aged 39’ (DNB).
