Travels in the Interior of South Africa

In November 1810, William John Burchell (1781-1863) arrived in Cape Town. This was the first voyage of discovery for the 30-year-old British explorer and naturalist. Before this, he had briefly been in trade, but that did not suit him. He undertook this journey on the recommendation of a Dutchman, Jan Willem Janssens, who was Governor of the Cape between 1802 and 1806 – but by the time Burchell arrived, he had long since returned to the Netherlands and the Cape was once again English territory.

A four-year journey

Once in South Africa, the researcher began preparing for an expedition into the interior. From June 1811 until 1815, he made a journey through the rugged landscape. He covered more than 7,000 km. A rotating team of staff, chosen from the local population, assists him; at times, he says, they let him down, and you wonder how he treats them. He calls them ‘Hottentot’ or ‘Bushman’, terms that have acquired racist connotations over the years. Burchell travels from Cape Town, via Stellenbosch through the Karoo to the east as far as Kerkenberg. Then he spends a considerable amount of time in and around Durban on the east coast. He travels on to Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape province, and subsequently the journey continues northwest, via Dithakong in the Northern Cape to other places in this region.

Collection

The goal is to inventory the flora of this part of the world and to expand his own botanical collection. He does this with gusto. More than 50,000 specimens of plants and animals were collected, and upon his return to London in August 1815, they filled 48 ship's crates. Once home, his notes and the collection were studied in more detail by him, and in 1822 and 1824 he published two volumes of his travelogue. The text in the two books follows that of his diary: Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. A third volume, which would describe the end of his journey, was not completed.

Engravings

The edition is illustrated with vignettes based on his own drawings. For instance, there is the ‘Bookoo’, the Agathosma serratifolia, whose leaves are used to make a vinegar. This serves, for example, to treat burns if the pistol of one of his hired assistants, named Gert, explodes in his hands. (The vignette is depicted on page 476 of Volume 1). The book also includes other engravings with images of people and landscapes; sometimes these are fold-out prints. These are hand-colored, such as the view of Cape Town and Table Bay – with a man with a parasol in the foreground, probably Burchell himself. Another print shows an encampment by the Zak River, where he waits in September 1811 until a convoy has grown sufficiently to dare to take a joint route through a dry, desert-like area.