from
Quentin Keynes
(Cambridge: privately published, 2004)

Mzilikazi (Moselekatse), King of the Matabele

watercolour sketch by William Cornwallis Harris, October 1836

Captain Harris's watercolour sketch of Mzilikazi (Moselekatse), whom he styled 'King of the Matabele' or 'King of the Amazooloo', is one of the classic images of a nineteenth-century African chieftain. It was redrawn and engraved to serve as the frontispiece to Harris's well-known narrative of his proto-safari in southern Africa, first published in 1838, and in that form is considered to be the only portrait of the king (frequently reproduced from that context). The original drawing, acquired by QGK in 1958, is less well-known.

Mzilikazi
Mzilikazi was the son of Mashobane, chief of the northern Kumalos, in South Africa, and rose to prominence in the service of Shaka, king of the Zulus. In 1823 he abandoned his allegiance to Shaka, and trekked northwards from Zululand (Natal) across the Vaal River, into what is now the northern part of South Africa, before moving south-west from there and re-establishing himself on the Vaal, south of modern Johannesburg (1823-7). He moved north again in 1827, to an area above the Magaliesberg range, near modern Pretoria, and was there when first visited by Dr Robert Moffat, and others, in 1829. In 1832 Mzilikazi moved westwards to the Marico Valley (west of modern Rustenburg), establishing a military capital at Mosega and royal kraals further north on the Tolane River, at Kapain (Gabeni), and elsewhere; and it was while in this area that he was visited in 1835 by Smith's Expedition, with Dr Moffat, and in 1836 by the American missionaries based at Mosega and by Captain Harris. He enjoyed success in bringing other peoples under his sway, and was feared for his despotic rule. Yet Mzilikazi was soon facing another threat, from the Voortrekkers, and suffered defeats at their hands on 16 October 1836 (at Vechtkop), in January 1837 (the destruction of Mosega), and in November 1837 (the destruction of Gabeni). In 1837-8 he led his people some distance further north, across the Limpopo (and so out of modern South Africa), to the Matopo Hills and the land in the vicinity of the new capital which he founded at Bulawayo. His people were the Ndebele (Amandebele, Matabele); and the area where they were now established came to be known as Matabeleland, in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). On three occasions in the 1850s he was visited in his kraal at Nyathi, near Bulawayo, by Robert Moffat, consolidating the friendship formed in 1829 and 1835. Mzilikazi died in 1868, and is renowned as the founder of the Matabele nation; it was during the reigns of his son Lobengula (1870-94) and grandson Nyamande that his people succumbed to white colonisation.

Captain Harris's safari in southern Africa (1836-7)
William Cornwallis Harris (1807-48) received his commission in the Engineering corps of the East India Company, and was based in India from 1825 until his death in 1848. In 1836, after a period of illness, a Bombay Medical Board sent him for two years to the Cape of Good Hope, so that he might recuperate in a better climate. He sailed from Bombay on 16 March 1836, and on board ship met William Richardson, of the Bombay Civil Service, who agreed to accompany him on a hunting expedition into the interior of southern Africa. Their ship arrived in Simon's Bay, Cape Town, on 31 May 1836. By a striking coincidence, H.M.S. Beagle, completing her passage across three oceans, sailed into Simon's Bay on precisely the same day. The medic and naturalist Dr (later Sir) Andrew Smith (1797-1872) had recently returned to Cape Town from his scientific expedition into the interior of southern Africa (1834-6), during the course of which, in June 1835, he had met Mzilikazi at his kraal near the Marico River, west of the Kashan [Magaliesberg] mountain range (above, pp. 00-0). Captain Harris went to see Dr Smith, and was given much useful advice by him, including ideas for a suitable gift for Mzilikazi. Captain Fitzroy and Mr Darwin also went to see Dr Smith at this time, and CD took some 'long geological rambles' with him. It is a pleasant thought that the hunter Harris might have met the naturalist Darwin, perhaps at Dr Smith's, or in the streets of Cape Town; certainly, they would have had plenty of interests in common.

After taking advice from Dr Smith, Harris set off with Richardson on his hunting trip into the interior. On 2 July 1836 they sailed from the Cape around the coast to Algoa Bay, and thence made their way inland to Graham's Town and Graaff Reinet. The plan from there was to strike northwards (like Dr Smith) to the missionary station at Kuruman, where they could count on help from Dr Moffat, 'and to proceed thence to the country of Moselekatse, king of the Abaka Zooloos, or Matabili, a powerful and despotic monarch, whose dominions were known to abound with game'. They left Graaf Reinet on 1 September, reached Kuruman on 26 September, and rode thence north-eastwards into 'Moselekatse's country', witnessing en route the early stages of the 'Great Trek', as disgruntled Dutch settlers from the Cape trekked north into the interior, in search of a better life free from British authority. On 19 October Harris and Richardson reached Mosega, where they were welcomed by a trio of American missionaries. Daniel Lindley, Alexander Wilson and Henry Venable had sought permission in March 1835 to leave the boundaries of the Colony 'for the purposes of propagating the Christian religion among the people who acknowledge Mosalekatze as their chief'; but it was not until February 1836 (and so some time after Dr Smith had been with Mzilikazi in June and October 1835) that their station was established at Mosega, prompting Mzilikazi to move about 50 miles northwards to Kapain. Harris and Richardson left Mosega on 22 October, and reached Kapain on 24 October. At first, Mzilikazi came out of his kraal to see them; but on 25 October they were allowed to enter the kraal, staying there until the following day. From Kapain, Harris and Richardson rode south-east over the Tolaan River towards the Cashan Mountains (the Magaliesberg range), where for much of November they seem to have enjoyed themselves immensely in what Harris called 'this fairy land of sport'. Moving further northwards, along the Limpopo Valley, they 'enjoyed the novel diversion of hippopotamus shooting'; and soon afterwards Harris 'first met with, and slew, the koodoo', which clearly impressed him as the most regal among the antelopes. On 1 December 1836 they reached the Tropic of Capricorn, returning south from that latitude back through the Cashan Mountains (where Harris 'discovered' the sable antelope), across the Vaal River, and so by a different route to Graaf Reinet, which they reached on 24 January 1837.

Meetings with Mzilikazi
By the time he met Harris, Mzilikazi had already made his impact on several outside observers, including Dr Moffat, Dr Smith, John Burrow, and the American missionaries. Their reports provide important testimony of the nature of Mzilikazi's regime, of his success in bringing other peoples under his power, and of his relations with intrusive settlers, missionaries, merchants, and hunters. Needless to say, the witnesses saw the king differently, in ways which provide scope for instructive comparison. Dr Moffat regarded Mzilikazi as one whose power over others made it necessary as well as politic to cultivate his friendship, and who could thus facilitate his own work among the heathen, yet he was clearly moved at the same time by Mzilikazi's seemingly deep affection for him. Dr Smith accorded Mzilikazi the deference due to a great ruler, whose support was necessary for the success of his own Expedition; while John Burrow seems to have been more interested in the quality of the beer. The American missionaries, based at Mosega, produced an impressively dispassionate report in August 1836, for the benefit of their own controllers, which includes careful analysis of Mzilikazi's regime, of his relationship with Dingane and with other tribes, and of their own prospects for saving his soul and those of his people.

Harris's entertaining description of his several meetings with Mzilikazi, during his stay at Kapain, 24-6 October 1836, can be placed beside earlier written accounts of the king, though he does not aspire to the dignity and detachment of their more formal reports. His three surviving drawings of Mzilikazi, all in QGK's collection, complement the sketches made by Charles Bell in June 1835. Harris was understandably nervous about making these drawings: 'Any attempt to have taken the king's portrait openly would probably have been attended with disastrous consequences, the art of drawing being supposed to be connected with witchcraft, but I seized the first opportunity of giving his Majesty a sitting unobserved.' They are powerful drawings, and bring us far closer than Bell's sketches to the image of the king himself.

The first of Harris's drawings of Mzilikazi (of which a detail is reproduced above) shows the king walking purposefully with folded arms towards the entrance of his kraal at Kapain, preceded by his herald, admired by his assembled warriors, and attended by his leading men. It is interesting to see how the drawing relates to Harris's narrative. Soon after Harris and Richardson arrived outside the entrance to the kraal, on 24 October, Mzilikazi had come out to meet them, and evidently made quite an impression:

He was attended by the spies that had accompanied us from Mosega, several of his chiefs, and most of the warriors who were not absent on the expedition I have alluded to, armed with shields and assagais. As he advanced others rushed up with a shout, brandishing their sticks. A number of women followed with calabashes of beer on their heads; and two pursuivants cleared the way, by roaring, charging, prancing, and caricoling as already described, flourishing their short sticks in a most furious manner, and proclaiming the royal titles in a string of unbroken sentences. <...> The expression of the despot's features, though singularly cunning, wily, and suspicious, is not altogether disagreeable. His figure is rather tall, well turned, and active, but through neglect of exercise, leaning to corpulency. <...> He appeared about forty years of age, but being totally beardless, it was difficult to form a correct estimate of the years he had numbered. The elliptical ring on his closely shorn scalp was decorated with three green feathers from the tail of the paroquet, placed horizontally, two behind and one in front. A single string of small blue beads encircled his neck; a bunch of twisted sinews encompassed his left ankle, and the usual girdle dangling before and behind with leopards' tails completed his costume.

After the initial exchanges, inside the travellers' tent, Harris and Richardson laid their gifts before him, including a fancy coat which had been specially made for the king in Cape Town, at Dr Smith's suggestion, and a tartan suit from Dr Moffat. After some further exchanges, Mzilikazi rose and left: 'The heralds preceding him as before, rent the air with shouts and acclamations, until "the great black one" had re-entered the kraal' -- essentially the scene drawn by Harris. Later the same day Mzilikazi returned, for a more informal meeting. This time he was wearing (against the cold) 'a handsome black leathern mantle', with ample folds reaching to his heels, which 'well became his tall and manly person'. On the following day (25 October) news came to Mzilikazi of (what was represented to him as) a victory over the emigrant farmers or Voortrekkers. He told Harris and Richardson that he wanted their tent, and in exchange for a promise that it would be sent to him once they had finished with it, he announced that they were at liberty to go wherever they pleased. Then he allowed them to pitch their tent inside the kraal, whereupon Harris examined the kraal and its inhabitants more closely. A second drawing of Mzilikazi, inscribed 'Moselekatse, King of the Matabili, Kapain, 25th October 1836', was evidently intended as a more formal portrait, made surreptitiously, and shows the king wearing the black leathern mantle (as seen on the previous day), in which (wrote Harris) 'he looked the very beau ideal of an African chief'. The third drawing shows the king with his paroquet feathers and leopard tails, as in the first.

Harris's Narrative (1838), or Wild Sports of Southern Africa (1839-)
Harris's enthusiastic account of the 'sport' which he enjoyed, especially in the latter part of his trip, is what earns him his place in the literature of hunting, and his accounts of Mzilikazi, and of the early stages of the Great Trek, have earned for his narrative its status as a significant historical source. Yet he was also a naturalist, and a very fine draftsman. He refers on several occasions to the fact that throughout his hunting trip ('during brief cessations from hostilities') he was making drawings of animals, never moving without drawing materials in his hunting-cap, working at first 'under a bush in the open air', and completing the drawings 'on my knees in the waggon amid rain and wind'. He showed some of his drawings to Mzilikazi, who told him the Matabele name for the animals in question.

When Harris returned to the Cape Colony, in the spring of 1837, he was carrying his prized sable antelope (ready for setting up and despatch to London) and 'two perfect crania of every species of game quadruped to be found in Southern Africa, together with skins of the lion, quagga, zebra, ostrich, &c., tails of the camelopard [giraffe], and tusks of elephant and hippopotami'; and, in addition to all this, 'elaborate drawings of every animal that interests the sportsman, from the tall giraffe to the minutest antelope'. Harris remained at Cape Town for several months, and in September 1837 published a map of Africa north-east of the Cape Colony, 'exhibiting the relative positions of the emigrant farmers and the native tribes', accompanied by an 8-page pamphlet describing the early stages of the Great Trek. In October, Harris's friend, Captain James Edward Alexander, sailed from Cape Town, taking with him the sable antelope destined for the British Museum and a copy of Harris's map and pamphlet for the Royal Geographical Society.

By the end of December Harris himself was back in India, and was appointed Executive Engineer at Belgaum in January 1838; he must otherwise have been hard at work on his account of his expedition. He was eager to return to Africa in order to reach the 'great Inland Lake', of which he had heard much in 1836-7; and in a letter to the Geographical Society of Bombay, dated at Belgaum, 1 August 1838, he offered his services to the Royal Geographical Society as leader of an expedition to be organised for that purpose. The proposal came to nothing, and in the event it was Dr Livingstone, and others, who first 'discovered' Lake Ngami in 1849.

The diary which must have been kept by Harris of his expedition into the interior of southern Africa is not known to survive, but evidently formed the basis for the narrative which he produced soon afterwards, 'for the perusal of some of my brother officers in India, with whom I have oft stalked the forest and scoured the plain'. This narrative soon fell into the hands of others, 'whose opinions I respect, and whom it afforded gratification', prompting Harris to make arrangements for its publication. Among those who encouraged him was Dr James Burnes FRS (1801-62), who served as a medical officer in India from 1821 to 1849, latterly as Physician-General of Bombay. Burnes was himself on sick leave in England from 1834 to 1837, so cannot have been on the board which sent Harris to the Cape; yet it was to Burnes that Harris dedicated his work, 'in the progress and publication of which he has evinced the most lively interest'. The Narrative was published by the American Mission Press, Bombay, in 1838.

The image of Mzilikazi which serves as a frontispiece combines elements derived from two of the drawings made by Harris at Kapain in October 1836, with the caption 'Moselekatse, King of the Amazooloo'. The figure of the king is taken from the drawing of Mzilikazi re-entering his kraal, but in this composition he is walking past the kraal that he should be entering and the herald who should be preceding him has become a dancing man in the middle distance; the kraal in the background seems to have been suggested by the drawing of Mzilikazi in his cloak. In the first issue of the Bombay edition, the image (facing left) serves as a frontispiece, in a rather crude lithograph made by Harris himself. For a variant issue of the same edition, the lithograph was made in London, re-drawn (with some misunderstanding) from a copy of the first issue. The image of Mzilikazi was used again for the second and later editions of the Narrative, under its new title Wild Sports of Southern Africa, clearly derived afresh from Harris's composition and now facing right (as intended). In the second edition, published in London by John Murray in 1839, the image appears as a wood engraving, inserted at the appropriate place in the main text; but in the third, fourth and fifth editions (1841-52) it appears as a coloured lithograph by Frank Howard, restored to its original status as the frontispiece. It has become most familiar in this form, conveying a dignified and respectful impression of the great 'King of the Amazooloo'.

Harris's Portraits of Game and Wild Animals (1840-1)
In issues of the first (Bombay) edition of his Narrative (1838), Harris published a prospectus for his projected 'African Views', which would comprise coloured lithographs (with explanatory text) of twenty-eight of his 'original paintings' executed during his expedition of 1836-7, showing all forms of the game quadrupeds of South Africa in their appropriate landscape. After he had collected his subscribers, the work was published as Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa Delineated from Life in their Native Haunts, issued in five parts in 1840-1, with an engraved title-page and thirty plates. Harris's Portraits is now one of the most highly-prized books in the field of Africana, renowned both for the quality of the plates which introduced African game to the English-speaking world (and which have since become iconic representations of their kind) and for the accompanying observations on the animals themselves.

Harris's expedition to Ethiopia (1841-3)
The reputation that Harris enjoyed as a result of the publication in 1838-9 of the first and second editions of his Narrative of an Expedition into Southern Africa ensured that in 1841 he was the natural choice, for the Government of Bombay, to lead a British expedition charged with opening relations with the court of Sahela Selassie, King of Shoa (Abyssinia), in his capital at Ankober. The expedition left Bombay in late April, sailing first to Aden and then across the gulf to Tajura. After a trek of nearly 400 miles, south-east across the desert, Harris and his party reached Ankober, 90 miles north-east of Adis Ababa (Ethiopia), on 5 August 1841. Lt William C. Barker, of the Indian Navy, commander of the ship which had taken Harris's party from Bombay to Aden, was obliged to leave them on 9 October, and on Harris's instruction attempted to return to the coast by way of Harar. He was in that respect unsuccessful, and it remained for Richard Burton to become the first European to enter Harrar, disguised as an Arab merchant, in 1854. The original manuscript of Barker's journal of his part in Harris's expedition, and of his attempt to reach Harar, apppeared at auction in 1986, and was acquired by QGK. For his part, Harris managed in November 1841 to secure the trade agreement between Great Britain and the King of Shoa, and remained there for the whole of the next year, observing, drawing, exploring, hunting, and writing. His three-volume account of his mission was completed while he was still at Ankober, in January 1843.

By May 1843 Harris was in England. A foretaste of his work appeared in the Illustrated London News in December 1843, accompanied by three engravings of his drawings; and the work itself was published in 1844, followed soon afterwards by a second edition. Harris tells how the King of Shoa had insisted on one occasion that he should not insert the king's portrait in the book which he was writing, 'as you have done that of the Negoos [king] of Zingero' (with reference to the portrait of Mzilikazi); but this did not deter him from making a suitably regal portrait of Sahela Selassie, published as the frontispiece to his third volume. In June 1844 Harris was knighted for his services on the mission to the court of Shoa. Thereafter, while still in England, he worked up his sketches of peoples, places, and scenes in Ethiopia, for a volume of illustrations. Eighteen of the twenty-six plates are said to have been from 'original drawings made on the spot by Sir William C. Harris', and the others from paintings made by the expedition's official artist, Johann Martin Bernatz; and such was Harris's own stature by this stage that the frontispiece reproduces a portrait of the hunter-engineer-artist himself.

On 11 February 1845 Harris married Margaret Sligo, daughter of George Sligo and Anna Outram (sister of General Sir James Outram). He returned to India in May 1846, resumed his work as an engineer, and died of 'lingering fever' at Surwur, near Poona, on 9 October 1848.

QGK's Harris collection
The quality of the 'Harrisiana' in QGK's collection is second to none. His great opportunity came in 1958, when a collection of Harris's original watercolours and pencil drawings passed into the hands of Maggs Bros., apparently brought in by someone who had acquired them at the sale of the contents of Haddon House, near Bridport, Dorset, some years before. The collection included no fewer than twenty of the original watercolours for Harris's Portraits. Six were bought by A. Gordon-Brown, and passed from him to two collections in South Africa (the William Fehr Collection, Cape Town, and the Africana Museum, Johannesburg); the remaining fourteen were acquired by QGK, and were kept in a bedroom cupboard. It was also from Maggs, in June 1958, that he acquired a 'Collection of original watercolour drawings for "Illustrations of the Highlands of Ethiopia, 1844", together with the Lithographs for the same and several drawings for "Wild Sports of Southern Africa"', all for £160. These were also found in the bedroom cupboard. Quentin was inspired by this good fortune to make an attempt to trace more of Harris's literary and artistic effects, among his collateral descendants; but although he made contact in January 1959 with Harris's two surviving grand-nieces, Miss Violet Harris and Miss Priscilla Harris, it is not clear whether he managed to acquire anything else in this way. The process did lead, however, to the uncovery of an excellent portrait of Harris as a young man, in the uniform of an officer in the Indian Army. Naturally, Quentin would have liked it for himself, but it passed through the agency of his father into the hands of the National Portrait Gallery. Quentin's persistence thereafter with auction and dealers' catalogues meant that in time he was able to put together an impressively comprehensive collection of Harris's books, in their various editions and states.

His large collection of original drawings, combining material from the expedition to southern Africa in 1836-7 with material from the mission to Ethiopia in 1841-3, is matched only by a collection of drawings which came to light in the USA in 1970, among the effects of a grandson of Harris's brother, and which was given to the Zoology Library of the Natural History Museum, London, in 1972.

In the early 1960s QGK was collaborating with Edward Tabler on a projected bio-bibliography of Harris, and he was also planning a facsimile edition of his original drawings for Harris's Portraits with Arnold Fawcus of the Trianon Press. Unfortunately nothing came of either project, and Quentin's collection of Harrisiana remained largely unknown. In 1991 he lent four of the watercolours for Wild Sports to an exhibition at the Albany Museum, Grahamstown; and in 1996 he lent two of the watercolours of Mzilikazi, plus his watercolours of the gnu and the kudu, to the Livingstone exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Sir William Cornwallis Harris is still largely unknown outside the circle of those who specialise in Africana, but it is to be hoped that QGK's collection of 'Harrisiana', when fully catalogued and exhibited, may do much to put him on the map.

References
(numbers not yet supplied)

William Cornwallis Harris, Narrative of an Expedition into Southern Africa, during the Years 1836, and 1837, from the Cape of Good Hope, through the Territories of the Chief Moselekatse, to the Tropic of Capricorn (Bombay, 1838); re-titled The Wild Sports of Southern Africa; being the Narrative of a Hunting Expedition from the Cape of Good Hope, through the Territories of the Chief Moselekatse, to the Tropic of Capricorn (London, 1839), 5th ed. (London, 1852). Cited below from William Cornwallis Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, 4th ed. (London, 1844), reptd African Hunting Reprint Series 9 (Bulawayo, 1991).

E. A. Ritter, Shaka Zulu: The Rise of the Zulu Empire (London, 1955), pp. 231-4.

Ibid., pp. 118, 150-1, 228-30.

A. T. Bryant, Olden Times in Zululand and Natal (London, 1929), pp. 417-46; Peter Becker, Path of Blood: the Rise and Conquests of Mzilikazi, Founder of the Matabele (London, 1962); R. Kent Rasmussen, Migrant Kingdom: Mzilikazi's Ndbele in South Africa (London, 1978); J. S. Bergh and A. P. Bergh, Tribes & Kingdoms (Cape Town, 1984), pp. 23 [image], 27-9 [movements in 1821-32] and 54-8 [in the Marico valley / western Transvaal 1832-7, and in Matabeleland 1838-68], with map, p. 22; Ian J. Knight, Warrior Chiefs of Southern Africa (Poole, 1994), pp. 96-141.

In addition to the entry on Harris in the Dictionary of National Biography [revised in 2004, but only by abbreviation, and with introduction of error], see Dictionary of South African Biography, ed. C. J. Beyers, IV (Durban and Pretoria, 1981), pp. 211-12. See also the introductions by Edward C. Tabler and Frank R. Bradlow to the modern facsimile editions of Harris's Portaits, cited below, n. 000; Bartle Bull, Safari: a Chronicle of Adventure (London, 1988), pp. 27-48, with map, p. 9, and James A. Casada, 'Introduction to the Reprint Edition', in Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, unpaginated (13pp.).

For RFR and Smith, see Narrative, II, p. 400, n.; for CD and Smith, see Beagle Diary, ed. Keynes, pp. 426-7 (8-15 June 1836).

Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, p. 19.

Letters of the American Missionaries 1835-1838, ed. D. J. Kotzé (Cape Town, 1950), pp. 31-2 (missionary report on Mzilikazi in 1833), 46-52 (instructions to the American missionaries, November 1834, recognizing a basic distinction between the 'martime Zulus', under Dingane [Shaka's half-brother and co-murderer], and the 'inland Zulus', under Mzilikazi) and 53-4 (missionaries seek permission in 1835 to move inland).

Letters of the American Missionaries, ed. Kotzé, pp. 103-7 (establishment of the missionaries at Mosega in 1836).

Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, p. 172.

Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, p. 185. Harris's magnificent drawing of a kudu is reproduced (from the original watercolour in QGK's collection) in David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, National Portrait Gallery exhibition catalogue (London, 1996), pp. 166-7.

For Moffat on Mzilikazi in 1835, see above, p. 00. See also Cecil Northcott, Robert Moffat: Pioneer in Africa 1817-70 (London, 1961), pp. 133-46 (visit in 1829), 153-62 (visit in 1835), 213-37 (visit in 1854), 238-71 (visit in 1857), and 272-95 (visit in 1859), with pp. 337-40 (Moffat and Mzilikazi).

Diary of Dr. Smith, ed. Kirby, II, pp. 61-74 (9-16 June 1835) and 251-6 (2-5 October 1835). Andrew Smith's Journal, ed. Lye, pp. 226-44; for his notes on the Matabele, see also pp. 275-81.

John Burrow: Travels in the Wilds of Africa, ed. Kirby, pp. 51-3 and 73-4.

Letters of the American Missionaries, ed. Kotzé, pp. 124-42. For Mzilikazi and the Voortrekkers in 1836-8, see ibid., pp. 151-6, 164-70, 195-7, 214, and 233-4.

Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, pp. 100-23 (chs. 15-18).

Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, p. 116.

Reproduced in David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, pp. 30-1.

Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, pp. 100-1.

The coat 'was composed of drab duffel, a coarse shaggy cloth commonly worn by the colonists, surmounted by six capes, and provided with huge bone buttons, and a ponderous bronze clasp in the shape of a crest, the whole being lined and fancifully trimmed with scarlet shalloon in a manner calculated to captivate the taste, and propitiate the esteem, of the most despotic and capricious of savages' (Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, pp. 2-3). For its presentation to Mzilikazi: ibid., pp. 102-3 and 120.

The battle of Vechkop (16 October 1836). See C. Venter, The Great Trek (Cape Town, 1985), pp. 42-4.

Reproduced in David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, p. 150.

Reproduced on the back of the invitation to the memorial meeting for QGK held at the Royal Geographical Society, October 2003.

Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, pp. 283-5.

Ibid., p. 283.

Frank R. Bradlow, 'William Cornwallis Harris's Map of Africa, North East of the Colony: Some New Information', Quarterly Bulletin of the South Africa Library 29.3 (1975), pp. 93-103. The map was reprinted in successive editions of Harris's Narrative (1838) and Wild Sports (1839-). Harris's original map, dated May 1837, penes QGK, and discussed by Bradlow, is reproduced in The Right to the Land, ed. T. R. H. Davenport and K. S. Hunt (Cape Town, 1974), p. 17; it is also reproduced in modern editions of Harris's Portraits published in 1976 and 1986 (below, n. 00).

W. C. Harris, Sketch of the Emigration of the Border Colonists, Extracted from the Unpublished Journal of a Visit to the Chief Moselekatse (Cape Town, 1837), on which see S. A. Rochlin, 'Captain Harris's "Sketch of the Emigration of the Border Colonists"', Africana Notes and News 12.5 (1957), p. 69, and Edward C. Tabler, 'A Bibliography of Works on South Africa by and about William Cornwallis Harris', Africana Notes and News 17.2 (June, 1966), pp. 43-71, at 43-4.

Harris's proposal was published in the first London edition of Wild Sports (1839), pp. xi-xv, reprinted at the back of later editions.

Tim Jeal, Livingstone (London, 1973), reptd (New Haven, 2001), pp. 89-94; map, in David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, p. 9.

Harris, Wild Sports of Southern Africa, p. xvi.

Sidney Mendelssohn, South African Bibliography [1910], 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1957), I, pp. 686-8; Tabler, 'Bibliography of Works on South Africa by and about William Cornwallis Harris', pp. 44-50.

R. F. Kennedy, Africana Repository: Notes for a Series of Lectures Given to the Hillbrow Study Centre From March to May 1964 (Cape Town, 1965), pp. 123-7, with Pls. 15 (a)-(b) and 16 (a)-(b), shows the four versions of Harris's image of Mzilikazi in successive editions of his Narrative / Wild Sports. See also David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, p. 32.

W. Cornwallis Harris, Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa Delineated from Life in their Native Haunts (London, 1840), on which see Tabler, 'Bibliography of Works on South Africa by and about William Cornwallis Harris', pp. 60-8.

Mendelssohn, South African Bibliography, I, pp. 688-9: 'one of the most important and valuable of the large folio works on South Africa'. There are three modern reprints: published by Balkema (Cape Town) in 1969, with an introduction by Edward C. Tabler and zooloogical note by Richard Liversidge; a full-size facsimile edition published by the Frank Read Press (Mazoe, Rhodesia) in 1976, with an important introduction by Frank R. Bradlow; and a smaller but more accessible version, with good plates, published by Galago (Alberton, RSA) in 1986, with a foreword by Peter Stiff.

Richard F. Burton, First Footsteps in East Africa; or, An Exploration of Harar (London, 1856). See Mary S. Lovell, A Rage to Live: a Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton (London, 1998), pp. 158-66.

Sotheby's, 10-11 July 1986, Lot 365. Burton printed a condensed version of Barker's journal in his First Footsteps, Appendix V, pp. 597-622. See also W. C. Barker, Narrative of a Journey to Shoa and of an Attempt to Visit Harrar (Bombay, 1868); reprinted by G. W. Forrest, in a book not identified, pp. 255-304. A magnificent silver cup, engraved with a drawing of a three-masted paddle steamer, with a yacht crossing its bows, was presented to Barker by Harris and other members of the expedition when back at Bombay in April 1843; it was sold at the sale of the library of Humphrey Winterton, Sotheby's, 28-9 May 2003, Lot 56.

A contemporary manuscript of the protocol of this treaty, dated 16 November 1841, appeared in the sale of the library of Humphrey Winterton, Sotheby's, 28-9 May 2003, Lot 346.

W. Cornwallis Harris, The Highlands of Æthiopia, 3 vols. (London, 1844), 2nd ed. (London, 1844).

Harris, Highlands of Æthiopia, III, p. 352 (1st ed.) or 345 (2nd ed.), with Frontispiece. The original watercolour for the portrait is in QGK's collection.

W. Cornwallis Harris, Illustrations of the Highlands of Aethiopia (London, n.d. [1844 or 1845]), comprising 26 plates, each with a page of explanatory text. It was published in two forms: with uncoloured plates, and with coloured plates.

Johann Martin Bernatz, Scenes in Ethiopia (London, 1852), comprising 'The Lowlands of the Danakil' and 'The Highlands of Shoa'. See also Mildred Archer, British Drawings in the India Office Library (London, 1969), pp. 393-5.

The portrait is by O. Oakley, and is dated 1845; reproduced in Harris's Portraits (Alberton, 1986), frontispiece, and in Bartle Bull, Safari: a Chronicle of Adventure (London, 1988), p. 28.

R. F. Kennedy, 'The Originals of Some of the Harris Prints', Africana Notes and News 15 (1962-3), pp. 155-6, and R. F. Kennedy, Catalogue of Pictures in the Africana Museum, 7 vols. (Johannesburg, 1966-72), III, pp. 136-8 (Gemsbok, Pallah, Roan antelope, Brindled gnu).

An invoice to this effect, dated 26 June 1958, was found among QGK's papers.

Letter from GLK to QGK, 16 April 1959: 'The Trustees of the N.P.G. today acquired the portrait of Sir W. C. Harris, & are paying the old ladies a generous price. I made a long speech & told how you'd found it, & they liked it. So that's all right.' The portrait was at first attributed by the NPG to Frank Howard (Annual Report of the Trustees 1959-60, pp. 6-7), but is now attributed to Ramsay Richard Reinagle (1775-1862) and dated 'circa 1823' (NPG website), when Harris was commissioned 2nd Lt and would have been about 16 years old.

The collection includes almost all of the original watercolours for the plates reproduced in the third and later editions of Wild Sports, some sketches made in connection with Portraits (though none of the finished drawings), and other sketches made in India in the mid-1820s and in Aden and Ethiopia in the early 1840s.