Beschreibung:

Journals of Walter Dundas Bathurst, kept while serving as an officer of the Association Internationale du Congo (AIC), running from 11 December 1883 (with his departure from England, arriving at the mouth of the Congo on 29 January 1884) up until 24 September 1886 (breaking off: "We camped last evening about an hour from Lukimgu water was very scarce & we could not get even enough to wash with this morning. Met Ward this morning stopped & had a short talk with him & then proceeded to the NKenge Moembe Market, where we camped. Met a very large caravan returning from the lower river, they all had heavy loads consisting of cloth, Powder, guns, basins, Jugs &c. Feel rather seedy this evening & have a bad headache. The result I fear of too much Malafu [palm wine]. I arrived here at the market very hot & thirsty and I had a good long pull at a pot of palm wine, and I am now suffering for it"), the journals kept in three notebooks, each with a list of letters written entered on the upper inside cover; together with a page of hurriedly-written pencil notes headed "Palaver at Kintamo 3rd April [1886]"; a memorandum signed by Stanley's former secretary A.B. Swinburne from Leopoldville, sending supplies to Bathurst at Kinshassa (4 September 1884); an unused supply request form of the AIC; correspondence with both the British and Belgian authorities concerning his application to be awarded the Congo Star; four autograph letters (one of 24 pages) by Bathurst's former colleague John Rose Troup, one of the few surviving veterans of the Rear Column of Stanley's Emin Pasha Relief Expedition (discussing the controversy that broke out about the expedition after their return to England, 1889-90); a file of family documents, etc., the journals over 300 pages in three volumes, spines broken and covers loose but internally clean and sound, half of one leaf torn away, 4to, Congo, 1884-85