First edition illustrated with in-text engravings and 15 plates, including a folding map and 2 hand-coloured plates.
Full polished calf binding, attractively marbled in shades of tan, the spine expertly restored and decorated in gilt with floral and foliate tools and gilt fillets, red morocco title label, gilt rolls at head and tail, double gilt fillets framing the covers, gilt fillet borders, marbled edges, contemporary binding.
Tears and losses to leaves 281–82 and 283–84 (with loss of text) have been carefully repaired; a few scattered spots.
John Davy (1790–1868), military physician and chemist, served with the British forces stationed in India as Inspector-General of Hospitals, and in that capacity resided in Ceylon from 1816 to 1820.
His account is among the earliest published after the British seized this former Dutch colony (1796–1814, following a war against the princes ruling the island’s central region), and it was never reissued thereafter.