Photo 1041

Full-leather bound album (binding weak) measuring 300 x 410 mm, titled as above in gilt on front cover, containing 90 printing-out paper prints, mounted four to a page in aperture mounts, with captions handwritten in ink beneath each image. A loose set of captions, printed in letterpress on gummed paper but not used, is also included. A single page of letterpress, entitled 'Scenes in Abyssinia. (Taken by Capt. H. G. C. Swayne, R.E., while with the British Mission to King Menelek - April to June, 1897),' pasted to the front fixed endpaper, gives a brief description of the geography of the country illustrated in the album.

The journey recorded in this album was one of the first important diplomatic missions undertaken by James Rennell Rodd, first Baron Rennell (1858-1941), when he was sent to Abyssinia as special envoy to negotiate a treaty with emperor Menelik: 'He secured permanent British representation at the emperor's court, a most-favoured-nation arrangement in regard to commerce, the prevention of war munitions for the Mahdists passing through Abyssinia, and a delineation of frontiers on the north and east of that country, though not on the south and west' ('Oxford Dictionary of National Biography').

Harald George Carlos Swayne (1860-1940), Royal Engineers. Carried out first exploration of British Somaliland, 1884-87 and commanded British Somaliland surveys 1891-93. Author of 'Seventeen Trips through Somaliland' (1895), 'Through the Highlands of Siberia' (1904), 'My Somali Book. A Record of Two Shooting Trips' (1913).