PAGES (Pierre Marie François).

Voyages Autour du Monde

A JOURNEY THROUGH TEXAS

et Vers les Deux Poles par Terre et par Mer, Pendant les Années 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1773, 1774 & 1775.First edition. 2 vols. Seven large folding engraved maps (including one showing Texas & Mexico), one large folding & 2 other folding plates. 8vo. Fine contemporary French mottled calf, red morocco labels to spines, these richly gilt, marbled edges, marbled endpapers, neat library stamp to lower outer margin of half titles. [iv], [5]-432; [iv], [5]-272pp. Paris, Chez Moutard, 1782.

£3,500.00

Born in Toulouse in 1748 the author of this extraordinary work joined the French Navy in 1766 and was posted to St. Domingo. Obtaining leave to travel he sailed to New Orleans and thence up the Mississippi, continuing up the Red River to Nachitoches by canoe. From there he travelled overland through Texas to San Antonio before going on to Mexico City and Acapulco where he took a passage to Guam and then Manilla. Unable to visit China, he voyaged westward through the Straits of Malacca to Muscat and up through the Persian Gulf, finally reaching Marseilles in December, 1771.

An “inveterate traveller” (Clark), Pagès was selected to join the unsuccessful second voyage of Kerguelen in search of the “Great South Land” in 1773. Since Kerguelen was dismissed from the service and imprisoned, and his account suppressed, the good account of the voyage which Pagès gives is particularly important. It is in some respects fuller than Kerguelen’s own, but never once mentions his captain’s name, evidently owing to the trouble that had occurred. To complete his travels Pagès sailed in a Dutch whaler to the north of Spitzbergen. After service in the American war he made a second voyage round the world and eventually retired to his estate in St. Domingo where he was killed in the slave uprising of 1793.

The author’s journey through Texas occupies about sixty pages of this work, and is illustrated by Plate 2, which is entitled Carte d’une Partie de l’Amérique Séptentrionale, qui contient partie de la Nle. Espagne, et de la Louisiane (approx. 315 by 415mm). The map shows New Orleans and the Red River as far North as Nachitoches in the upper right quadrant, with “Province de los Texas” to the West, and Mexico, as far South as Acapulco on the Pacific coast, beyond. In addition the tribal lands of Native Americans are marked, including those of the Apaches and Tegas. cf. Hill 1285; Sabin, 58168; Clark I, 285.

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