David Livingstone

DAVID LIVINGSTONE (Blantyre, Scotland, 1813-Chitambo, Northern Rhodesia, 1873)
"The interior of Africa. Viages del doctor David Livingstone".
Printed by Jose Domenech, Valencia, 1874.
Exhibits wear consistent with age and use, missing corners of covers and damp stains.
Measurements: 21 x 15 x 4 cm.

The book "The interior of Africa: travels of Dr. David Livingstone" recounts Livingstone's explorations of the African continent, highlighting his work as a missionary and explorer. His travels covered vast areas of Africa, including the Kalahari Desert, Lake Ngami, the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls, contributing significantly to the geographical understanding of the region.

David Livingstone was a British physician, explorer and missionary, one of the greatest figures in the history of exploration. Through astronomical observations, he established correct situations in African cartography and made reports on botany, geology and zoology. He also distinguished himself for his fight against slavery. For all this, he was considered a national hero in Victorian Britain.

Livingstone's fame as an explorer and his obsession with knowing the sources of the Nile River were founded on the belief that if he could solve that ancient mystery, his fame would give him the clout to end the East African Arab-Swahili slave trade. The sources of the Nile, he told a friend, are valuable only as a means of opening my mouth with power among men. It is this power that I hope to remedy an immense evil. His subsequent exploration of the Central African watershed was the culmination of the classical period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of Africa. At the same time, his missionary travels, "disappearance" and eventual death in Africa - and subsequent glorification as a posthumous national hero in 1874 - led to the founding of several important Central African Christian missionary initiatives carried out in the era of the African Partition.