[Arsenic Collection] Missionary Account of Ethiopia: Gobat - Journal d’un Séjour en Abyssinia, pendant les années 1830, 1831, et 1832 (1835)

[GOBAT, Samuel] Journal d’un Séjour en Abyssinia, pendant les années 1830, 1831, et 1832. Paris: Chez J.-J. Risler, Rue de l’Oratoire, No. 6; Genève: Chez Mme. Suzane Guers. [1835]

(250 x 130 mm) pp.  viii, 438. Signatures: 27 (8), 28 (3). Text complete. Lacks frontispiece portrait and foldout map. Half title, followed by title. Browning and foxing commensurate with age. Some text in Ge’ez (401). Ex libris Clinton E Geiser (Anglo-Swiss financier, d. 2010) pasted over older bookplate now obscured. Bound in Paris green book cloth (indicative of arsenical binding) with ornate floral stamping and gilding. Some flaking to spine. Overall GOOD condition despite faults.

ABOUT THE TEXT:

Parmi tant de travaux intéressant opérés depuis quelques années par les missionnaires de l’Evangile, on peut certainement mettre au premier rang les efforts fait par M. Samuel Gobat pour rallumer en Abyssinia le pur flambeau du Christianisme. 

[Among so many interesting works carried out in recent years by the missionaries of the Gospel, we can certainly put in the first rank, the efforts made by M. Samuel Gobat to rekindle Ethiopia with the pure torch of Christianity. ]

Samuel Gobat’s training as a missionary brought him from the Basel Mission Institute in his native Switzerland to the Missionary Institute in Paris, to the CMS training institution in London. His training complete and his ordination in the Lutheran church confirmed, he served six years in Ethiopia. The record of his first three years are preserved in this book.

The first two parts, written in the third person, depicts the inhabitants of Ethiopia, the geography of the landscape, natural resources, and wildlife, the history of Christianity and a general history of the region.

The third part shifts into M. Gobat’s first-person introduction of his journal. He begins with a prayer expressing his fears and hopes for his mission:

“Le 25 février 1830, à huit heures du matin, j’ai quitté Adi-Grâte avec mes frères Kulger et Aichinger, qui m’ont accompagné pendant environ une demi-heure. En me séparant d’eux j’ai senti, pour un moment, ma misère et ma faiblesse plus que jamais. J’ai confessé mes péchés à Dieu en chemin, et je l’ai prié de m’accompagner, de me préserver des dangers que j’allais courir, surtout du péché, et de bénir mon voyage pour les salut de quelques ames.” 

[On the 25^th of February, at 8am, I left Adi-Grate with my brothers, Kulger and Aichinger, who accompanied me for about a half an hour. In separating from them, I felt, for a moment, my misery and my weakness more than ever. I confessed my sins to God on the road, and I prayed to him to accompany me, to preserve me from the dangers that I was going to encounter, and above all from sin, and to bless my voyage for the salvation of some souls.]

ABOUT THE BINDING:

The emerald green pigment of on the binding of this book is due to the use of copper acetoarsenite— the cloth contains arsenic. Arsenic was used as a colouring agent for book bindings particularly between the 1840s to the 1860s. Often embellished with gold and blind stamping, as with this example, these bindings appear shiny or coated.

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