The DAVID LIVINGSTONE COLLECTION brings together some of the most well-known and beloved writings pertaining to Livingstone and his amazing career as a missionary and explorer. This volume if beautifully illustrated with dozens of the original woodcuts and contains the complete texts of: 1. Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. This is the classic that really made Livingstone famous. It includes how he felt called t...

John R. Jewitt's story of being captured and enslaved by Maquinna, the great chief of the Mowachaht people, is both an adventure tale of survival and an unusual perspective on the First Nations of the northwest coast of Vancouver Island.On March 22, 1803, while anchored in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the Boston was attacked by a group of Mowachaht warriors. Twenty-five of her 27 crewmen were massacred, their heads "arranged in a line" for survivor John R. Je...

In the latter half of the 19th Century a group of particularly intrepid explorers navigated their way into the interior of Africa, documenting what they saw, mapping the territory they crossed, and competing with one another to be the first to discover the fabled 'source of the Nile'.The dangers they faced in order to achieve their aims required incredible courage and endurance - from deadly wildlife such as lions, crocodiles and hippos, to the even deadlier unseen threats of Malar...

Supported by a family inheritance that gave her £500 a year, Mary Henrietta Kingsley traveled to Africa to complete the book her father had started. The subject was the culture of Africa and Kingsley stayed with local people while she learned to survive in the African jungles, studied cannibal tribes, discovered new species of fish, and climbed Mount Cameroon by a route untouched by any European before her. Kingsley's ideas greatly influenced European ideas about Africa and the African peo...

This file includes: First Footsteps in East Africa or an Exploration of Harar; The Land of Midian (Revisited); Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah; To the Gold Coast for Gold, a Personal Narrative; and Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo. According to Wikipedia: "Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton (19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lingui...

"If a fit and proper person volunteer to travel in the Somali Country, he goes as a private traveller, the Government giving no more protection to him than they would to an individual totally unconnected with the service. They will allow the officer who obtains permission to go, during his absence on the expedition to retain all the pay and allowances he may be enjoying when leave was granted: they will supply him with all the instruments required, afford him a passage going and returning,...

William Bligh (1754-1817) was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator eventually rising in rank to Vice Admiral. During his command of the "Bounty" in 1789, a notorious mutiny occurred. William Bligh and eighteen of his loyal seamen were expelled from the "Bounty" onto a small boat and began the greatest open-boat voyage in history, sailing some 4,000 miles to protection in Timor. The mutineers, led by Fletcher Christian, sailed off with the "Bounty" in other purs...

Cook's three voyages of discovery, which took place between 1768 and 1779, are among the most remarkable achievements in the history of exploration. Cook charted vast areas of the globe with astonishing accuracy, and the voyages also made a significant contribution towards solving some of the great problems of cartography and navigation.With crews containing gifted sailors and navigators, as well as botanists, painters and scientists, Cook provides the link between the speculative,...

Narrating his experiences in Africa, Baker has dwelled upon the wild and untamed beauty of the land. He elaborates the culture of the people, their religion as well as the wild-life and its habitat. The book offers a detailed study of the area with a profound personal touch and opinions of the author.

Among all those Englishmen who, from a humble origin, have risen to an honourable position, Captain James Cook is especially worthy of record. His parents were of the peasant class—his father having commenced life as a farm-labourer, and his mother being a cottager’s daughter. Probably, however, they were both superior to others of the same station, as the husband, in process of time, became farm-bailiff to his employer—a Mr Thomas Skottowe. This was about the year 1730, and the farm of wh...

Forty years ago our troops were armed with a smooth-bore musket, and a small force known as the "Rifle Brigade" was the exception to this rule. The military rifle carried a spherical bullet, and, like all others of the period, it necessitated the use of a mallet to strike the ball, which, being a size larger than the bore, required the blow to force it into the rifling of the barrel in order to catch the grooves. Sporting rifles were of various sizes, but they were constructed upon a princ...