Beschreibung:

TRAVEL JOURNALS Manuscript journals of George Brigden, in two volumes, written in ink on lined paper, the first titled "My First Voyage", a daily account of his voyage as 2nd Steward on board the steam yacht Lady Beatrice from Gravesend to Lisbon, from thence to Gibraltar, Algiers, Malta and Gozo, Alexandria, Port Said, Beirut and the return journey on the Coromandel, with Captain Parker and Mr Part, describing life on board ship, seasickness ("I have had enough of yachting to last me a long time"), his duties, wildlife, people and places encountered, ending with an ill-fated shooting trip in the Gulf of Iskenderum (Southern Turkey), illustrated with twenty two albumen prints pasted in with titles such as "Great Archway erected after the Independence", "Street in Arab Town, Algiers", "Mr Part etc in camp", "Huntsmen, Natives of Bayrout", "Dog to the Rescue", "A Native, Ishmael", "Group of Native Women", with his Certificate of Discharge, 402 pages, quarter roan, binding and some pages loose, spine detached, 4to, prints 195 x 148mm. and smaller, 2 November 1887 – 19 March 1888, signed and dated at end October 1889; the second volume "my trip to Somaliland on the East Coast of Africa" with Mr Part and Dr Nicholson, via the Suez Canal, joining the Woodcock at Aden, via Zaila, Harabod, Heussa, and on into Somalia, portrait photograph opposite first page, 271 pages, quarter roan, binding and some pages loose, 4to, 7 March - 1 June 1891 (2) Fußnoten 'I SIT ON THE BALCONY, I SMOKE AND WRITE MY BOOK... JUST A FEW ARABS CREEPING ABOUT AND OCCASIONALLY SOME SAILORS SINGING ALONG': vivid and evocative descriptions of people and places, seen through the eyes of an Englishman abroad. Volume One, illustrated with photographs, culminates in an eventful shooting trip whereby the intrepid travellers are beset by rain and jackals, Brigden suffers arsenic poisoning from dressing the animal skins and, despite the two gentlemen being attacked by a leopard (which nearly proves fatal to Mr Part), he is pleased to take home some souvenirs; "one boar skin, two wild cats, three sheep, two goats, three jackals and one... with head on it, one jay, large owl, small spotted owl, cestral [sic.] hawk, five ducks, two black and white spotted kingfishers, magpie, two franklins, one partridge and several other things". Volume Two is no less exciting – he encounters tribesmen, some of whom had never seen a white man before, gets embroiled in local tribal disputes, searches for quartz and meets characters such as Count Salla who is travelling 2,000 miles to Zanzibar alone with limited provisions and a "Winchester repeating rifle strapped to his saddle". Brigden has an excellent eye for detail and is not afraid to express his opinions on what he sees – on the attractiveness (or not) of the native women, the laziness of the men, the crooked deals in the markets ("I found this a difficult matter for I could find no one who could talk English"), strange food ("as they have no pockets they put it [bread] inside their shirts") and local customs ("it was very interesting but a little went a long way").