BROWNE, William George (1768-1813). Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria. London, 1799. FIRST EDITION.
4to (273 x 211 mm). Engraved frontispiece, 2 engraved folding maps, engraved folding plan. (Very slightly foxed with some light browning.) Contemporary speckled calf gilt, spine gilt (hinges cracked, spine label chipped, wear to extremities). Provenance: T. J. L. Rooke, Mere Hall (bookplate). FIRST EDITION. Browne arrived in Alexandria in 1792 and explored the antiquities at Siwa, Cairo and Kosier before deciding to go with the great Sudanese caravan to Darfur, providing the first European description of the area. Detained there by the Sultan he spent his time usefully by examining the country and returned with the caravan in 1796, having obtained remarkably accurate information on the course of the Nile. He arrived in England in 1798 by way of Syria, Asia Minor and Constantinople. He later travelled in Turkey and the Levant generally, meeting an untimely end when he was murdered in Tariz, Persia in 1813 while on an expedition to penetrate beyond the Caspian. Blackmer 219; Hilmy I p.91; Gay 43; Atabey 156 (later French edition).
