131. CAPE OF GOOD HOPE - KOLBE, DESCRIPTION DU CAP DE BONNE-ESPERANCE, 3 volumes.

KOLBE, PIERRE (KOLB, PETER). Description du Cap de Bonne-Esperance; Ou l'on trouve tout ce qui concerne l'Histoire-Naturelle du Pays; La religion, les moeurs & les usages des Hottentots; et l'établissement des Hollandois... I-III. Amsterdam, Jean Catuffe, 1741.

8vo (150x95 mm.). (22), 370, (1); (14), 228; (20), 280 pp. With engraved frontispiece, all three titles with engraved vignettes, 5 folding engraved maps, 25 engraved plates of which 1 is large and folding (Vue du Cap de Bonne Esperance). Titles printed in red and black.
Contemporary full calf bindings, partly worn, boards partly warped and vol. III stained, gilt spines in compartments, marbled edges. Some foxing and minor spotting. Vol. III with some minor worming to pages 14-80, mostly marginal, but some very minor losses.

The work describes the colonization of the Cape Colony by the Dutch and the customs of the local population with, among other things, detailed descriptions of the geography, fauna and flora, and way of life of the local population and a French-Hottentot vocabulary. Vol. III describes only animals; fish and birds with many plates.

Peter Kolbe was a German scientist who was sent by the Dutch East India Company to the Cape in 1705 to do research there.
The book was first published in German (1719) with the title: "Caput Bonae Spei hodiernum, das ist, Vollständige Beschreibung des africanischen Vorgebürges der Guten Hoffnung"; a Dutch edition was published in 1727. This is the first French edition.

3 vols.