Reminiscences of Australia, with Hints on the Squatter's Life
London, W.N. Wright [and] Simpkin and Marshall, 1846.
Duodecimo, [viii], 368 pages with 2 small diagrams plus a lithographed frontispiece ('Camp at Dried Beef Creek') and a folding map ('Route to the N. West from Fimbour', 212 × 183 mm plus the printed title). A typographical error on page 247 has been corrected in ink in an early hand ('or again' has been inked out of the third-last line and written in at the beginning of the next line).
Original brown cloth lettered in gilt on the spine, and extensively decorated in blind on the spine and both sides; cloth a little worn at the extremities, lightly scuffed and marked, and recently neatly rebacked, retaining the original backstrip and endpapers; top and leading edges uncut; minor signs of age and handling, but overall, a very good copy.
Christopher Hodgson (1821-1865) was managing Condamine Station in 1844 when Leichhardt arrived to prepare for his journey to Port Essington. He was persuaded to make Hodgson a member of his party; the expedition set out on 1 October but on 5 November Hodgson and the African-American cook Caleb agreed to return, as provisions were already running short. Within six weeks of the date of his return, a rumour spread that the expedition party had been massacred. Hodgson set out with a small search party at the end of July 1845; they returned after seven weeks when provisions were exhausted, but not before the rumours were scotched. Pages 256-363 comprise his journals of the two expeditions; the last leaf of the preliminaries records that news has been received of the successful termination of the expedition and the death of 'my old comrade (Mr Gilbert) ... A nobler or more enterprising fellow never breathed'.
Item #143495
Price (AUD):
$1,350.00