Journal Historique du Voyage fait au Cap de bonne-Espérance... Précédé d'un Discours sur la Vie de l'Auteur, suivi de remarques & de réflexions sur les Coutumes des Hottentots & des Habitans du Cap.
Paris: Ches Guillyn, 1763.
Price: $1,000.00
About the item
First edition. 3 figures and a folding map. xxxvi, 380 pp. 1 vols. 16mo. Quarter modern vellum, gilt spine, uncut. Fine. Mendelssohn I, p. 434; for de la Caille: Dictionary of Scientific Biography, VII, pp. 542-545.
Item #47346
Nicolas Louis De La Caille (1713-62), an eminent French mathematician and astronomer, arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on March 30, 1751 and began a study of the parallax of the moon. In this diary, he gives descriptions of Rio Janeiro, the Cape, Bourbon, and Ascension. De La Caille's account of the Hottentot and other customs and societies dissented from and superseded Kolbe's narrative, although he made almost as great errors as his predecessor. However, after the publication of this journal by De La Caille, Kolbe was no longer considered a standard author on the topic. (See Theal, History of South Africa, 1691-1795).
