Book excerpt: This volume offers annotated texts with biographical and historical introductions of four previously unpublished travel journals from the period 1775-1874. The first is an account of a Spanish expedition sent from Mexico to explore the north-west coast of America in 1775, the second an account from a surveying operation in the Straits of Magellan in 1827. The third item is the diary of a voyage of 1828-31 to make observations in the South Atlantic to determine the shape of the Earth and to ascertain the longitudes of a number of ports. The final text is the remarkable record, by the freed African slave, Jacob Wainwright, of how he brought David Livingstone's body back down to the coast of Africa.