Discovery of Lakes Rudolf and Stefanie. A Narrative of Count Samuel Teleki's Exploring & Hunting Expedition in Eastern Equatorial Africa in 1887 & 1888. By his Companion. Translated by Nancy Bell (N. D'Anvers).

First edition in English of this excellent work of exploration and sport, noted for recounting the European discovery of Lake Turkana. Hungarian nobleman Samuel Teleki (1845-1916) developed an interest in the region north of Lake Baringo, in what is now Kenya, after learning of Joseph Thomson's expedition, which reported the supposed existence of a large, haunted lake further north. He was encouraged by Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria to turn an intended safari into a journey of exploration, and von Höhnel, a naval officer, "would equip and arm the expedition to the highest standards, money being no object" (Howgego). The party arrived in Zanzibar late in 1886, crossed to Pangani in January the following year and reached the foothills of Kilimanjaro by June, making an assault on the summit in which Teleki reached a height of 5,300 metres (von Höhnel turned back after 4,950). They continued north along Thomson's route through the Masai and Kikuyu homelands. They reached Lake Baringo in February 1888, and Lake Turkana the month after. Returning via Baringo, they followed the Rift Valley and passed the future site of Nairobi, arriving back at Mombasa in October with over 400 ethnographic objects and a large collection of plant and animal specimens. Von Höhnel's account originally appeared in German (1892). This English translation is also encountered in brown cloth, with no priority assigned. Many of the original photographs taken by Teleki and von Höhnel are believed to have been destroyed during the Second World War, so are only preserved by the drawings in the published account. Provenance: front pastedowns with the bookplate of Norman Douglas Simpson (1890-1974), Cambridge botanist who was in Africa throughout the 1920s, working for the Cotton Research Board at Giza and on irrigation projects across Egypt and Sudan while also collecting plant specimens for Kew. Czech p. 131; Howgego IV T11. 2 vols, octavo. Wood-engraved frontispiece in vol. I, map frontispiece in vol. II, 2 large folding colour maps linen-backed at stub as issued, illustrations in the text. Original blue cloth, spines lettered and decorated in gilt, blind rules on boards enclosing gilt vignette on front, black surface-paper endpapers, edges uncut Spines cocked, headcaps and corners lightly rubbed and bumped, a few small markings to cloth, moderate foxing, very occasional marginal finger-soiling. A very good copy.…