A Description of Patagonia, and the Adjoining Parts of South America…Illustrated with a New Map.

FALKNER, Thomas.

Item Number: 112546

Hereford: Printed by C. Pugh; and sold by T. Lewis, 1774.

First edition of this fascinating 18th-century account of Patagonia and South America, with one of the two important large folding maps by Thomas Kitchin of South America, measuring approximately 30 by 20 inches. Quarto, bound in full calf, gilt titles and tooling to the spine, morocco spine label, gilt tooling to the front and rear panels, marbled endpapers. Lacking one of the two folding maps. In near fine condition. An exceptional example.

"Father Falkner lived in the regions south and west of the La Plata nearly forty years and often made the journey from Buenos Aires up the Parana to Cordova and Santa Fe, and to the Southern Interior and the Lakes. The greatest commerce of the country was cattle and horses.The publication of his book led the Spanish Government to survey the coast of Patagonia and to form settlements upon it… The work also contains an account of the language of the Moluches with a grammar and a short vocabulary" (Cox). The two maps essentially form one large map of the southern portion of South America on two sheets, together comprising one of the most detailed maps of the region to date, with a cartouche portraying the "great Cacique Cangapol" of Patagonia, as well as his wife Huennee. "He must have been seven feet and some inches in height," Falkner writes, "because, on tiptoe, I could not reach to the top of his head." He goes on to dispute previous accounts of "giants" of Patagonia: "The Patagonians, or Puelches, are a large bodied people; but I never heard of that gigantic race, which others have mentioned, though I have seen persons of all the different tribes of southern Indians" (page 26). Cox II, 283-84. Sabin 23734. Palau 86485.