Spinifex and Sand. A Narrative of Five Years’ Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia

London : C. Arthur Pearson, 1898. Thick large octavo, publisher’s sand-coloured cloth over boards, upper board illustrated and lettered in black (corners a little bumped, spine dulled as usual), spine with gilt lettering and decoration, top edge gilt; ; pp xvi, 454, portrait frontispiece and a total of 47 photographic plates and line illustrations, 4 folding maps (2 in rear endpocket), contemporary owner’s name to endpaper (James Threlfall, April 1st, 1901), hinges a little cracked else a very good copy.

David Wynford Carnegie, a gold prospector, arrived in Western Australia in 1892. This work is his account of the epic expedition undertaken in 1896-1897, on which he led his party of five men (including an Aboriginal guide, Warri) and nine camels from Coolgardie across the Gibson Desert and Great Sandy Desert to Hall’s Creek in the East Kimberley and back. Carnegie met a tragic early end when he died from a poisoned arrow wound in Nigeria in 1900.

Ferguson 7960; Wantrup 196a.