Journal of a Rambler - The Journal of John Boultbee

Oxford University Press, Auckland, 1986. Cream hard cover with gilt titles on spine. Some fading to spine else very tidy. Contents tight with touch of foxing to the e/p's and page edges. There is minor water damage to the bottom of the pages. 225pp with maps on e/p's. Dust jacket has faded spine and minor edge wear.

John Boultbee, born in 1799 in rural Nottinghamshire, was a younger son of minor gentry who wandered far from England before his death in Ceylon in 1854. He first left England in 1816 for the Brazils, and in 1818 went to Barbados with the aim of settling there as a planter. But he found Barbados uncongenial and in 1823 he emigrated to Tasmania, influenced by the voyages of Captain Cook and seeking `that second Elysium of the South Seas, Otaheiti.' But Tahiti eluded him; instead he went sealing - first in Bass Strait, and then on the rugged, unexplored western coast of southern New Zealand/ In 1827 he lived with the Maori people in Murihiku, in the far south of New Zealand. He learned their language, attempted to understand their beliefs, and won their friendship. His account of their life and customs is vivid and compelling. In 1828 he returned penniless to Port Jackson, and worked ballasting ships, and salting and selling fish for his keep, before heading west to the newly founded settlement at Swan River in Western Australia. After three wretched years there he joined a whaler heading for the Timor Sea, and wandered east to Manila before heading towards Singapore and Columbo. He spent the last years of his life in Ceylon. Boultbee was endowed with a lively imagination, unusual powers of observation and an acute appreciation of the different cultures he encountered in his travels. His journal provides an account of his life from childhood until his arrival in Colombo in 1834, and paints a vivid picture of life in the Antipodes and Far East in the early decades of the 19th century...