Buy this book on-line

Matthews, J. W : Incwadi Yami, or Twenty Years' Personal Experience in South Africa

(Johannesburg: Africana Book Society, 1976) 094997322X

ISBN 094997322X

Africana Reprint Library, Volume Nine. Facsimile of the 1887 Rogers & Sherwood edition, with new foreword and index and additional illustrations. 8vo; blue pictorial rexine blocked in gilt and black; pictorial dustwrapper, housed in removable protector; tinted top edge; pictorial endpapers; pp. xxiv + 542 + xv, incl. index; liberally illustrated with plates and text illustrations. Near fine condition. 'The author left England in 1864, having been appointed Surgeon to the Tugela, bound for Port Natal with emigrants, and on his arrival in South Africa he succeeded in obtaining the post of District Surgeon to Victoria County (Natal). Dr. Matthews proceeded to the diamond fields in 1871; he had already sent up a party to work in the mines, in charge of Mr. G. J. Lee, afterwards Chairman of the Kimberley Mining Board, a gentleman well known as an expert geologist. The author was for many years closely identified with every social and political movement on the Fields, and his description of the diamond fields, and his references to the "Illicit Diamond Trade," are particularly interesting. There are particulars of "The Kimberley Company and Share Mania of 1881," "The early History of the Diamond Fields," "An account of the Black Flag Riot," together with sketches of the author's adventures in Basutoland, Swaziland, and the Transvaal, where he eventually settled.' - Mendelssohn

Bibliophile Bookbase for antiquarian books, maps and prints.