Tower-Rock view of the Missisippi.

£600 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books · No longer available

Vignette IX. On 18 March 1833 the party embarked on a steamer bound for Ohio. On the Missisippi, above the mouth of the Ohio, between the settlements of Cape Girardeau and St Genevive, stood an isolated drum-like formation in the river known as Tower Rock. Maximilian estimated it to be more than sixty feet high. From the illustrated 'Travels in the Interior of North America between 1832-34' by Prince Maximilian Alexander Philipp Zu Wied-Neuweid, published in two volumes by Ackermmann in London 1843. The finest work on American Indian life and the American Frontier, it is the result of an epic journey which took place at a time when the mass migrations of settlers and pioneers was about to alter irrevocably the unspoiled West. Karl Bodmer (1809-1893) was engaged by Prince Maximilian (already famed for his earlier explorations in Brazil) to provide a record of his travels among the Plains Indians of North America during 1833-34. His efforts show great versatility and technical virtuosity and give us a uniquely thorough, accomplished and detailed picture of a previously little understood (and soon to vanish) way of life. The most important part of their travels started from St Louis, whence they proceeded up the treacherous Missouri along the line of forts established by the the American Fur Company. At Bellevue they encountered their first Indians, then went on to make contact with the Sioux Tribe, learning and recording their little known ceremonial dances, their powerful prid

• Binding: Hardcover

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