The Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce: Volume 1
Written by Himself, during a Residence in Abyssinia from the Years 1810–1819; Together with Mr Coffin's Account of his First Visit to Gondar

This 1831 two-volume autobiographical account is particularly interesting for its detailed information about the land and people of Ethiopia.

Nathaniel Pearce (Author), John James Halls (Edited by)

9781108074605, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 May 2014

364 pages
21.7 x 14 x 2.2 cm, 0.47 kg

Nathaniel Pearce (1779–1820) was, according to J. J. Halls, who edited and published his autobiographical writings in 1831, 'one of those remarkable and adventurous beings, whom Nature … seems to take delight in creating'. Having run away to sea twice, deserted from the navy, accidentally killed a man, and briefly converted to Islam, he came into his own as a guide and factotum to British travellers in Egypt. He accompanied Henry Salt's 1805 mission to Abyssinia, where he married a local girl and served the ruler of Tigré until the latter's death in 1816. Pearce's humorous account of his life is particularly interesting in the details it gives of the land and people of Ethiopia, then little known by Europeans. Volume 1 begins the narrative of Pearce's life and his African travels and also contains an account of an expedition to the city of Gondar by his friend William Coffin.

Dedication
Live of Nathaniel Pearce
1. Ras Welled Selassé
2. Destruction of the town of Bolento
3. The Ras marches against a Galla chief
4. Death of the deposed king Itsa Ischias
5. Pearce is obliged by ill health to leave the Ras
6. Mr Coffin's journal of the expedition to Gondar
7. Mr Coffin's narrative concluded
8. Pearce's journal resumed
9. Character, manners, and customs, of the Abyssinians
10. Arts practised to procure husbands.

Subject Areas: African history [HBJH]