‎BARRERE, PIERRE.‎
‎Nouvelle relation de la France equinoxale, contenant la description des côtes de la Guiane.‎

‎Paris, Piget, Damonneville, Durand, 1743. 8vo. In contemporary full calf with four raised bands and richly gilt spine. Small paper label pasted on to top of spine indicating the placement in an estate library. A very fine and clean copy. (2), IV, 250, (1) pp. + 3 folding maps and plans and 16 folding plates. ‎

Reference : 60597

‎First edition of Barrere’s beautifully illustrated work on the early days of the French colony in Guiana and its capital city Cayenne. Pierre Barrère, a French physician and naturalist, practised in Perpignan from 1717. In 1722, he travelled to Cayenne in Guiana where he stayed for five years and became botanist to the local king. He compiled numerous observations on the tribes inhabiting Cayenne and its surroundings, the local economy, plants - especially those he deemed useful for medicine - and the animals of the region, as well as the cultivation of coffee, cocoa, and sugarcane. The author provides essentially new and valuable details about the Indians. The beautiful engraved plates illustrate the customs, costumes, and instruments of the daily life of the known tribes inhabiting the territory of French Guiana in the first quarter of the 18th century, enumerated in the final chapter: Barrere distinguishes between the coastal Indians and those settled inland, admitting that he does not know them all, but asserting that they are 'all cannibals' (p. 235). Leclerc, Bibliotheca americana 119Pritzel 426Sabin 3604‎