The English-American his Travail by Sea and Land: Or, a New Survey of the West-India's, Containing a Journall of Three Thousand and Three Hundred Miles within the Main Land of America.

FIRST EDITION, title within woodcut border, woodcut initials and decorations, contemporary calf, rebacked, small folio, R. Cotes, and are to be sold by Humphrey Blunden at the Castle in Cornhill, and Thomas Williams at the Bible in Little Britain, 1648.

“The English-American his Travail by Sea and Land… was the first book by an English writer portraying daily life in the West Indies and Spanish America… Gage saw much and recorded the buccaneering and wholly his own were the strong narrative lines and his gift for observation. He wrote of the volcanoes overlooking Antigua (Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango) and the bustle of Portobello when the treasure fleet was in, with silver ingots piled in the street like paving-stones. He zestfully recalled the cuisine of the New World – the tortillas, beans, and tamales of the poor, the strange new fruits of the Indian market, and delicacies like the iguana. To chocolate, with an addict’s obsessiveness, he devoted an entire chapter. He denounced the blending of Mayan ceremony and Catholic rites, but seldom condescended to his Indian parishioners, whom he found civil, gentle, industrious, and long-suffering.” – ODNB.

Hill 665; Sabin 26298; Wing G109