A Pilgrimage in Europe and America, leading to the Discovery of the Sources of the Mississippi and Bloody River; with a description of the Whole Course of the Former, and of the Ohio. [Two volumes]

London: Printed for Hunt and Clarke, 1828. First English edition. Three quarter dark brown morocco over marbled boards, five raised bands decorated in gilt, black morocco lettering pieces, gilt volume numerals. Nearly invisible repair to front hinge, else a very good set, extremities worn, scattered foxing; tear at inner margin to first few leaves, offsetting on title, folding map remounted, creased, trimmed to exclude the left side neat line but without loss to map, mainly marginal repairs to two tears on verso of one plan.. xxiii, 472 pp.; 545 pp. Illus. with engraved frontis, 3 plates, 2 folding plans, and large folding map of the Mississippi. 8vo. Giacomo Costantino Beltrami was a naturalist and explorer who left Italy for Europe after a period of political persecution, then journeyed to America where he traveled from Pittsburgh down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to Ft. Anthony; then to Canada, down the Red River, across to the Missouri and down the Mississippi to New Orleans. For a while he had joined up with an expedition led by Major Stephen Long in 1823 but left to travel again on his own after relations with Long soured. Vol. II. is "almost entirely devoted to the author's travels among the North-western Indians, of whom he gives some novel particulars. The narrations of what he witnessed are tinged with the peculiar glow of the author's temperament. Beltrami must have moved in a gigantic world, if he saw external objects through the same media with which he viewed his own person and accomplishments," Field, Indian Bibliography, p. 28. The work was not well received. Sabin 4605. Field 111. Pilling: Proof Sheets, 340. Eberstadt 107-20. Howes B338. Wagner-Camp 26a: 2. Clark II: 182. Monaghan: French Travellers 178B. Larned 1591. Hubach 59. Buck 181.