The Wind Makes Dust. Four centuries of travel in southern Africa

(Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2003) 0624041654. 244 x 170 mm; laminated pictorial wrappers; pp. (xiv) + 377; profusely illustrated with contemporary artwork in monochrome. Slightest curl to corners of wrappers; earlier owner's bookplate to half-title. Very good condition. "An off-beat anthology spanning four hundred years of travel in and around the southern tip of Africa. From early European seafarers making sometimes bloody contact with Khoikhoi at the Cape, to the era of railways, hotels and pass laws, The Wind Makes Dust takes us on an eccentric odyssey through the past. It parades a cast that includes soldiers and statesmen, cannibals both black and white, missionaries, elephant hunters, escaping slaves, circus showmen, fossil hunters, a shipwrecked Siamese mandarin and a homesick San shaman. It also contains instructions for cooking elephant's foot, some truly awful poetry, a quest for the unicorn, and a sprinkling of discreet sex." .