William Cornwallis Harris was a nineteenth-century military engineer, traveller and hunter. In 1836, he travelled to South Africa in order to recover from a fever gained while working for the East India Company.

While in South Africa, he arranged an extensive hunting expedition from Algoa Bay to the interior of the country. Lasting from 1836-7, Harris and his companions followed routes supplied to them by ivory traders and witnessed the conflicts between Voortrekkers and Northern Ndebele people living in the northern Transvaal.

The expedition was notable for Harris’s passionate descriptions of the region and of the animals he encountered. However, he was also a ruthless hunter and killed many of the animals that he had observed for sport. This book describes the animals encountered during the expedition. While not a great artist, the illustrations provided some of the first accurate depictions of the fauna of southern Africa.