BAIKIE, Robert. Observation on the Neilgherries, including an Account of their Topography, Climate, Soil, & Productions, and of the Effects of the Climate on the European Constitution: with Maps of the Hills and the Approaches to them, Sketches of the Scenery, Drawings of the principle Buildings, Tables of Routes, &c … Edited by W. H. Smoult. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press. 1834.
Royal 8vo. In the rarely seen original publisher's cloth, remnants of printed label to spine (restored); pp. xiv, [2], 136, 11 lithographic plates with tissue guards (10 of which hand-coloured), one very large outline-coloured lithographic folding map of the entire region, measuring 51 by 70 cm (repaired marginal tear), 33 other outline-coloured lithographic maps; occasional toning and spotting, a good copy of a beautiful rarity.
Very rare first edition, presentation copy from the editor, inscribed "T. N. Smith, from W. H. Smoult, Earl of Hardwicke, September … 1838" on the front free fly-leaf.
Robert Baikie was a doctor who spent over seventeen years practising in India for the East India Company's Madras Army. He wrote this all-encompassing monograph of the region while Senior Medical Officer of the Nilgiris, which had been tribal land. The hill region became much appreciated by Europeans, and from the 1820s the region was rapidly developed by the British Raj. Tea and coffee plantations were established and it became a popular summer and weekend destination; the summer house of the Madras Presidency was established at Ooty in 1827.
The fine maps and botanical illustrations are signed by Jean-Baptiste Tassin, who started one of Calcutta's earliest lithographic presses in 1830 and later moved to San Francisco. He had arrived destitute in Bengal from Singapore, having been shipwrecked off the Malayan archipelago. His skill in lithographing maps derived from his previous employment as naturalist, and as such a skilled draughtsman, on board a French Government ship.
In the preface the editor gives full costings from the production of the book and states that 500 copies were printed.
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