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First edition in English of this milestone in mountaineering literature, describing the first European ascent of Kilimanjaro. Meyer's work is illustrated with a series of atmospheric photographs and photogravures. The geographer Hans Meyer (1858-1929) had already made two unsuccessful attempts at scaling the mountain, when he returned in 1889 with the Austrian mountaineer Ludwig Purtscheller (1849-1900), the painter Ernst Platz (1867-1940), and a well-organized support team, establishing advance camp at 4,300 metres and deciding to go by the south-eastern slope. Setting off on 3 October, they took nine hours to reach the Ratzel glacier, which had blocked Meyer's progress on the first attempt. They scaled it in four grueling hours, reaching the crater rim, just 150 metres below the summit. With time and strength running out, they returned to advance camp to try again three days later. "This time the route was clearly marked and the previously cut ice steps had held their shape. The rim was reached in six hours, and at exactly 10.30 am on 6 October 1889, they reached the summit at what Meyer called 'Kaiser-Wilhelm-Spitze' (now Kibo) ... With Purtscheller's help, various scientific observations were carried out, and the massif was mapped for the first time. Meyer and Platz then remained for several weeks more in the vicinity of the mountain and examined the relatively unknown north and west sides of the Schira plateau. Meyer returned to Germany to considerable public acclaim ... As an authority on East Africa, Meyer through his writings profoundly influenced German attitudes towards its colony, and in 1905 he was given charge of the Landeskundlichen Kommission des Reichskolonialamts" (Howgego). Meyer's work was published in German as Ostafrikanische Gletscherfahrten in 1890. Copies of the English translation are also found with plain black blocking on the front cover. READ MORE Large octavo. Original green cloth over bevelled boards, spine lettered in gilt and decorated in black, gilt title and pictorial block of Kilimanjaro in black with multicolored blocking on front cover, green surface-paper endpapers, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Mounted chromolithographic frontispiece, 8 mounted photographic plates, 12 photogravures from watercolors after photographs by the author, all with tissue guards, 3 folding color maps, 1 with tissue guard, wood engravings in the text. Illegible contemporary ownership signature on front pastedown (showing through verso). Slightly rubbed, spine ends a little creased with two short tears, a few minor marks or surface scratches, mild cockling of frontispiece, scattered foxing or toning, map tissue guard worn, paper slip sometime inserted between pp. 36/37, a little offsetting. A very good copy with the blocking bright and the mounted photographs unfaded. Howgego IV M58; Neate 517.