Author: HAAFNER, Jacob.
Title: Travels on foot through the island of Ceylon.
Description: London, Richard Phillips and Co.,1821.Original wrappers, uncut. With 3 aquatint plates (2 folding) after Reinier Vinkeles by W. Read. 118 pp.First English edition; first published in Dutch Reize te voet door het eiland Ceilon. Amsterdam, 1810. - Jacob Haafner was captured by the English in Madras but escaped to Ceylon. His eyewitness account of his journey on foot through Ceylon in 1810 from Jaffnapatnam to Colombo, was finished by his son Christiaan Mattghias and posthumously published in Amsterdam in 1810. 'Haafner was an anticolonialist, a man before his time, for his ideas were not to be topical until more than a century had elapsed' (De Silva & Beumer, Dutch Ceylon, p.462). Jacob Gotfried Haafner (1754 - 1809) was a German-Dutch travel writer who lived in and wrote extensively on India and Sri Lanka. His travelogues were noted for their Romantic undertones, lively descriptions of Indian cultures and peoples, as well as criticisms of European colonialism, slavery, and cultural domination. He mixed up facts, romance and strong prejudices in very readable stories which provide insight into typical English Enlightment views on colonial and Indian society' (Coolhaas p.66-67). Haafner witnessed the Company's death agony and demise, and wrote about it. He has a lively and compelling manner (Nieuwenhuys, Mirror of the Indies, p.21).Goonetileke 2190; Cf. Tiele 435; Cat. NHSM I, p.243 and Landwehr, VOC, 350.

Keywords: Asia Ceylon Sri Lanka Dutch travel VOC Ceylon Sri Lanka VOC Dutch East India Company VOC South Eas Asia