Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa: Volume 2

William John Burchell (1781-1863) is remembered for this outstanding geography of South Africa, published in two volumes in 1822-4 and later taken on Darwin’s Beagle voyage. It covers the first year of Burchell’s 4,500-mile expedition into southern Africa from 1811 to 1815, while ‘botanist to the Cape Colony’. The author returned to England with 500 scientific and ethnographical drawings, many of them used as illustrations in the book, and about 63,000 natural history specimens including 120 animal skins and 265 species of bird. His preface emphasises that his journal is accurate, independent and free from prejudice; he also claims that unlike many travelogues, his contains no ‘indelicacies … offensive to decency’. Volume 2 covers February to August 1812, and focuses on ethnography. Burchell describes the indigenous peoples he encounters, their way of life, including music and dance, and notes many local words for artefacts, animals and plants.