HERMAN MOLL, To the Right Honourable Charles Earl of Peterborow and Monmouth, &c. This Map of Africa, c. 1715.

HERMAN MOLL
To the Right Honourable Charles Earl of Peterborow and Monmouth, &c. This Map of Africa
London: Herman Moll, c. 1715
Copperplate engraving with original hand color
Paper size: 24 4/5" x 40 1/4"

Gorgeous 2-sheet map of Africa, from the leading English mapmaker of the period. The map shows the whole continent as well as Madagascar, portions of the coast of Asia, Ceylon, India, and Brazil, along with an inset view of the Cape of Good Hope, showing the bay filled with ships, Table Mountain and a key to the locations noted. The three other insets include Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast of Guinea, James Fort on St. Helena and a plan of the Fort of Good Hope.

Includes a fascinated note in Guinea, I am credibly informed that ye country about 400 leagues North of the Coast of Guinea is inhabited by white Men, or at least a different kind of People from the Blacks, who wear Cloaths, and have ye use of Letters, make Silk, and that some of them keep the Christian Sabbath.

The old sources of the Nile, Lakes Zaire and Zaflan, have been turned into swamps and are no longer connected to the Nile. The sea is filled with indications of currents, as well as a good route to take to the East Indies from England. Decorated with a lovely compass rose and a cartouche that has a native wrestling a crocodile, an ostrich, two battling snakes, a lion and an elephant.