Original drawings and watercolours for the author's 'The First Ascent of the Kasai: being some Records of service Under the Lone Star'.

£17,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

The First Ascent of the Kasai … was published in 1889 — a handsomely illustrated volume that recorded the author’s part in an expedition to determine where the waters of the Kasai River emptied themselves. Charles Somerville LaTrobe Bateman joined the so-called ‘German Expedition’ (despatched by the Geographical Society of Berlin under the commission of Leopold II) on the return-leg of the river-voyage, which had succeeded in its initial aim of descending the Kasai to the Congo at Kwamouth; thereby confirming the Kasai as a tributary to the great river. Bateman and the expedition leader, Dr. Wolf, were tasked with ascending the Kasai in order return the Bashilange-Baluba people (who had acted as guides for the descent) to their homeland at the headwaters of the river. Once there they had a second objective to fulfil: to establish a station at the confluence of the Lulua with Luebo, as a port for the station of Luluaburg. Aboard the steam-wheel steamer Stanley and the steam-launch En Avant , they departed Leopoldville on the 30th of September 1885 and arrived at their destination on the 7th of November in the same year. Bateman then served as an administrator for the Luebo District: performing a number of difficult functions, such as attempting to prevent slave raiding. He was eventually picked up by by the Stanley on the 18th of December 1886, when he, for the last time, looked ‘upon the dark woods and swirling waters’ of that territory (p.170). In addition to his primary dut

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