Across East African Glaciers. An Account of the First Ascent of Kilimanjaro

First English edition. 3 coloured folding maps, coloured frontispiece, 12 mounted photographic & 8 other plates, with further illustrations in the text. Original green pictorial cloth, gilt, with a little bruising to spine extremities. Fore-edge of front free endpaper slightly frayed as hinge tender between frontispiece and title page. Publisher's note tipped in. xiii, 404pp. London, George Philip & Son,

Rare, and increasingly difficult to find in the publisher's pictorial cloth binding. "Kilimanjaro is now an open secret; the great crater of Kibo has been discovered, the summit of the mountain has been attained, and the scientific material collected is such as to afford a tolerably complete picture of the most interesting region of equatorial East Africa" (Preface).

 

The first serious attempts to climb Kilimanjaro weren't made until the late 1880's. In 1887 Count Teleki climbed as high as 17,300 feet and Meyer himself reached the ice-cap at 18,000 feet before being forced to return. Meyer's successful ascent with Ludwig Purtscheller in 1889 was all the more difficult for being made over the Ratzel glacier and without any climbing irons. Upon reaching the summit, he was able to refute the claim made by Ehlers in the same year that there was no crater. Neate, 517.

Stock Code: 192594