Description

Journals of the Rev. Messrs. Isenberg and Krapf, missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, detailing their proceedings in the Kingdom of Shoa and journeys in other parts of Abyssinia in the years 1839,1840,1841, and 1842 to which is prefixed a geographical memoir of Abyssinia and South-Eastern Africa, by James M’Queen, Esq. grounded on the Missionaries’ journals, and the expedition of the Pacha of Egypt up the Nile.

An exceedingly rare book and a gem in the history of Ethiopian exploration. At the same time the best and most comprehensive source by far on Krapf’s and Isenberg’s first expeditions to Ethiopia! – Carl Wilhelm Isenberg (1806-1864), a German traveller and missionary, started working in Adua in Tigre in 1835, where, at the beginning of 1838, Johann Ludwig Krapf arrived too. In March of that year, the two missionaries had to leave the country. Back in Africa in 1839, they went from Tadjura to Ankober, the capital of Shoa, crossing Danakil territory. This book is the only one that describes this expedition of Isenbergs’ to Ethiopia and even in Krapf’s ‘Travels, Researches and Missionary Labors…’ there is only a very short, 2-page report on this journey! With its impressive 529 pages, on which the missionaries’ travel reports are described chronologically, quoting sometimes Krapf, sometimes Isenberg (‘the tenor of the remarks indicating the individual who makes them’ p. X) the ‘Journals’ are among the rarest and most comprehensive sources on Ethiopian exploration and in particular on the work of Krapf and Isenberg! Isenberg left Ankober in November 1839, and from that point in time it is Krapf alone who reports. – Johann Ludwig Krapf (1810-1881) was a German missionary and a most important explorer. He was the very first to bring reliable news of the snow-covered mountains of East Africa to Europe. From Rabai Mpia next to Mombassa he carried out several eminent expeditions into the East African hinterland together with Johannes Rebmann and Jakob Erhardt and Carl Wilhelm Isenberg. In 1848 Krapf and Rebmann discovered the Kilima-Njaro, one year later Krapf was the first European to see Mount Kenia. His discoveries contributed decisively to the exploration of the sources of the Nile and the Tanganjika. The ‘Journals’ are the only publication on his early expeditions 1839-42.

Henze II, 689 (Isenberg) und III, 70 ff. (Krapf),

Embacher 177,

Henning, Württembergische Forschungsreisende 12 ff.