Second French edition of Stavornius's accounts of his two voyages, made in 1768-1771 and 1774-1778, to the Cape of Good Hope and the Dutch East Indies. Stavorinus was a rear admiral who temporarily transferred to the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in search of adventure. An observant traveller, he not only comments on the many exotic beauties he encounters (he was especially taken by the beauty of the Parsi women of Gujerat), but also describes the decline of the VOC, the appalling health conditions in pestilential Batavia, claiming the lives of numerous VOC servants each year, the fate of slaves kept in Batavia, the drinking habits of Europeans in Ambonia (10 to 12 glasses before diner was apparently no exception), etc.
Browned, some stains, slightly soiled, two maps reinforced. Bindings worn, spines damaged at head and foot. South African bibliography IV, p. 386; Tiele, Bibl. 1044 note; cf. Landwehr, VOC 300.