The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.

London: Macmillan and Co., 1867]. 8vo. 20th-century black half-morocco over marbled boards, spine with raised bands and lettered in gilt, original cloth bound in; incomplete copy of the second edition, lacking title and preliminaries, but bound in: SCHWEINFURTH, Georg. Signed autograph letter in French to Ernest Ayscoghe Floyer in Cairo, Assint (Egypt), February 2, 1893. 8vo. Pp. [4]; last page partly stuck to green endpapers, first page with some offsetting from green endpapers. Georg Schweinfurth (1836-1925) was an intrepid explorer of East and Central Africa (Heart of Africa, first English editon, 1873) from the 1860s to the 1890s. In the 1870s he settled in Cairo, founding the Egyptian Geographical Society. In the 1890s he returned repeatedly to Africa, and this letter informs Ernest Ayscoghe Floyer (1852-1903) about difficulties with topographical names of a map of Egypt, and indiginous plant names and species. Floyer had been appointed Inspector General of Egyptian Telegraphs in 1877, serving in that role until his death in 1903. In 1891 he was commissioned by the Khedivial Government to lead an expedition into the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, discovering ancient emerald mines. He must have asked the weathered traveller Schweinfurth on advice in preparing the expedition, and Schweinfurth dutifully replied by sending this letter.