MOLLIEN, Gaspard Theodore.
Travels in Africa, to the sources of the Senegal and Gambia, in 1818 … Translated from the French.
London, for Sir Richard Phillips and Co., 1820.
8vo, pp. ix, [1 (blank)], 128; folding map facing title, 4 engraved plates; small tear and some creasing to map, plates foxed and browned, a little foxing to text; overall good in recent drab boards, spine label.
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Travels in Africa, to the sources of the Senegal and Gambia, in 1818 … Translated from the French.
First edition of an abridged translation recounting the French explorer Gaspard Theodore Mollien’s west African expeditions in 1818. Mollien first developed an interest in exploration after reading Robinson Crusoe as a young boy but was forced to take a job as a civil servant with the Marine and Colonial Department following his father’s premature death. Having survived the wreckage of the Méduse off the coast of Mauritania (as immortalised by Théodore Gericault), Mollien returned to France with the hope of convincing the authorities to appoint him leader of an expedition to discover the sources of the Senegal, Gambia, and Niger rivers. Undeterred by their refusal, he returned to Senegal under his own steam and with the consent of the local governor (and the aid of just a single guide) set off inwards from Saint Louis in January 1818. ‘In the city of Sédo, Mollien persuaded the local ruler, in exchange for gifts, to allow him to continue his journey further to the south in the direction of Fouta Djallon, where the major rivers were known to rise. However, the sources were sacred to the Peluses, who remained reticent about their location, forcing Mollien to search for them in secret. On 12.4.18 he arrived at the sources of both the Rio Grande (= Corubal) and Gambia, and five days later reached the source of the Félémé, one of the major tributaries of the Senegal. After proceeding through Timbo in Niogo, the source of the Bifang (the second tributary of the Senegal) was reached on 26.4.18’ (Howgego).
‘[Mollien’s] Voyage dans l’Interieur de l’Afrique, published in 1820, marked him as a gifted writer and shrewd observer, equally interested in geology, ethnology and native traditions.’ The work was published in English translation in two different formats in the same year as the French original: a tall quarto edition coming to almost 400 pages, and this, a small octavo with an abridged version of the translation. As well as the narrative, the map, and four engraved plates, it also contains an appendix consisting of an itinerary and two vocabularies of local native languages.
Howgego, M51.
