CAILLIE René Journal d’un voyage à Tembouctou et à Jenné, dans l’Afrique centrale, précédé d’observations faites chez les Maures Braknas, les Nalous et d’autres peuples ; pendant les années 1824, 1825, 1826, 1827, 1828. Avec une carte itinéraire, et des remarques géographiques, par M. Jomard, membre de l’Institut.

Gay, 2748 ; Numa Broc, p. 64 ; En français dans le texte, 243. 

First edition, rare, of one of the most important travel accounts on Africa. 

René Caillié (1799-1838) achieved two important objectives: visiting Timbuktu and returning alive to Europe, and crossing the Sahara from Niger to Morocco.  Leaving for the first time to Senegal in 1816 at the age of 16, Caillié returned in 1824 for a third time, encouraged by the award of 10 000 Francs offered by the Société de Géographie for the first European traveller to return alive from Timbuktu, believing it to be a rich and wondrous city.

Caillié is remarkable for his approach to exploration. In a period given to large-scale expeditions supported by soldiers and employing black porters, Caillié spent years learning Arabic, studying the customs and Islamic religion before setting off with a companion, and later on his own, travelling and living as the natives did. The observation he recorded was very different to Laing who recorded that Timbuktu was a wondrous city. Caillié stated it was a small, unimportant, and poor town with no hint of the fabled reputation that preceded it.

The plates depict the mosque of Timbuktu (plates 4 & 5), folding view of a part of Timbuktu (plate 6), a woman of the city of Timbuktu (plate 2), René Caillié reading the Coran (plate 3) and the large folding map by Jomard with the itinerary of Caillié.

This copy is inscribed on the verso by the author : “offert à monsieur de Gerbidan par l’auteur, Caillié”.

A fine good copy, complete with the engraved portrait, the 6 plates called for, and the rare errata leaf missing in many copies.