LIVINGSTONE DAVID: (1813-1873) Scottish Missionary & Explorer of Africa. A printed portion of the proof to ...

LIVINGSTONE DAVID: (1813-1873) Scottish Missionary & Explorer of Africa. A printed portion of the proof to Livingstone's publication Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, one page, oblong 8vo, n.p., n.d. (c.1857), bearing various holograph corrections by Livingstone. The proof states, in full (with Livingstone's holograph corrections in bold), 'The instruments I carried, though few, were the [be]st of their kind. A sextan[t], by the famed makers [Tr]oughton and Sims, of Fleet-Street; a chronometer watch, with a stop to the seconds' hand -- an admirable contrivance for enabling a person to take the exact time of observations: it was constructed by Dent, of the Strand (61) for the Royal Geographical Society, and selected for the service by the President, Admiral Smythe, to whose judgment & kindness I am in this and other matters deeply indebted. It was pronounced by Mr. Maclear to equal most chronometers in performance. For both one of these excellent instruments I have much pleasure in recording my obligations to my good friend Colonel Steele, and at the same time to Mr. Maclear for much of my ability to use them. Besides these, I had a thermometer by Dollond; a compass from the Cape Observatory, and a small pocket one in addition; and a good small telescope and with a stand capable of being screwed into a tree. 11th of November, 1853. - Left the town of Linyanti, accompanied by Sekeletu and his principal men, to embark on the Chobe. The chief came to the river in order to see that all was right at parting. We crossed five branches of the Chobe before reaching the main' With various tears and age wear, professionally restored and laid down. About G Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa was published by John Murray in London in 1857.