THE SOURCES OF THE NILE: Being A General Survey of the Basin of That River, and of its Head-Streams; with the History of Nilotic Discovery.

First edition, first printing. Author's presentation copy, inscribed to Alexander George Findlay. Octavo. Publisher's original plum cloth with blind-stamped decoration to the boards and titles in gilt to the spine. Top edge untrimmed. Pale yellow endpapers. Illustrated with seven engraved maps (two folding, including frontispiece of the Nile Basin and one in-text). A very good copy, the binding square and firm with some minor marks to the cloth, wear to the corners, a little fraying and chipping to the joints and spine ends, a neat repair to the lower joint. The contents, with a little toning and very occasional spotting to page edges, occasional offsetting from the maps to facing text pages and a small, neat clear tape repair to the blank margin of the lightly creased folding frontispiece map, are otherwise in very good order and clean throughout.

Inscribed in black ink at the head of the title page "A. G. Findlay Esq. / From the author". An excellent association copy of this notable work on the exploration of the Nile, presented by one key figure in the charting of the region to another. Charles Tilstone Beke (1800-1874) was an English traveller and geographer, best-known for his explorations and studies of the Nile and its tributaries. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society - who had received its gold medal for his contributions to the knowledge of Ethiopia - Beke was the first to determine, with any approach to scientific accuracy, the course of the Abay River, otherwise known as the Blue Nile. The present work, although drawing upon on his earlier texts, includes his pioneering essay 'On the Nile and its Tributaries' and contains much new material concerning the latest discoveries in the region. Having had his theories on the population and geography of the interior of Africa confirmed by the explorations of Sir Richard Burton, Beke also used the present work to call for the opening up of the continent by merchants, missionaries and philanthropists. The recipient, Alexander George Findlay (1812-1875), was a geographer and one of the leading hydrographers of the period, who produced charts and maps for a wide variety of famous ventures. Indeed, at the time of Sir John Franklin's loss he sifted all the possible routes; and as a member of the Arctic committee of the Royal Geographical Society worked on the arguments which induced the government to send out the Alert and Discovery expedition of 1875. Much of his time was also devoted to the labours of his friend David Livingstone, as well as African exploration more broadly. Notably, Findlay contributed to the investigation of the sources of the Nile, constructing maps for the Burton and Speke explorations of 1858–59, which in part built upon - and vindicated - Beke's previous work. Pleasingly, this copy of Beke's most complete study of the Nile valley was thus given to Findlay shortly after this latest expedition had returned home.