1703 / 1707 John and Samuel Thornton Nautical Chart of the Passage into the Red Sea, to Mocha.

Earliest Printed, Accurate Chart of the Source of London's Coffee.

This is John and Samuel Thornton's scarce c. 1703/1707 chart of Bab el Mandab, the Strait of Mandeb, or 'the Gate of Lamentation.' For centuries, this has represented a chokepoint between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa and also forms a strategic bottleneck between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The present chart is the first of the Strait to benefit from a firsthand survey at a time when this region supplied most of Europe's coffee.

A Closer Look

This elegant, east-oriented chart, centered on an attractive compass rose with rhumb lines radiating from it, presents the Red Sea extending from the port of Mocha (Moha on the chart) in the north to 'The Eight Stone Islands' in the south - now known as the Seven Brothers Islands (of which only six are islands, the seventh being a volcanic hill on Djibouti's Ras Siyyan peninsula). The harbor of Mocha and other areas of the coastline are given profile views, indicating the topography of important areas: the relative impassability of the coast of Djibouti, for example, and the hills protecting Mocha's harbor. In the upper left is an inset chart for Mocha, also including a distinctive coastal profile. The African coast (to the lower right) is labeled Abyssinia (Abexina on the chart). At the bottom center, unnamed, is the Eritrean archipelago of the Halib Islands. Profuse depth soundings mark the Arabian coastline from the harbor of Mocha to the 'Strait of Babelmandell' itself, and to an island with the same name applied to it.

The Gate of Lamentation

A cursory glance at the meticulous soundings of the Strait and the island communicates the narrowness and shallowness of the passage; the name of the Strait most likely derives from the perils of its navigation. (Perhaps more colorful is the Arabic legend that, in ancient days, Arabia and Africa had been connected across the Strait. A catastrophic and deadly earthquake had created the channel, and the loss of life inspired the Strait's titular tears.

Whatever its etymology, this bottleneck to trade was famed for centuries. The Bab el Mandab had long been a feature on European maps of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula; it appears on Gastaldi's 1561 Secundae Partis Asiae and on most modern maps of that part of the world throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. As here, the European mapmakers apply to both the Strait and the island the name 'Bab el Mandel,' a term properly assigned to the Strait itself. (The proper names for the island are actually Perim, or Mayyun). However, prior to Thornton, we see no printed evidence of a firsthand survey of these waters. The best printed prior chart (Mortier's 1696 Carte Particuliere de la Mer Rouge) presents a much broader area, with much less detail, and no soundings.

A 1541 manuscript chart attributed to the Portuguese João de Castro, (1500 - 1548) charts a similar region, but less thoroughly; it is an antecedent to the present work but shows not enough similarity to indicate a connection. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France has an English manuscript chart of the harbor of Mocha from 1683 by London cartographer Augustine Fitzhugh, which may have been a source for the coastal views here, or may have been of the same school as an unknown source. Also in the BNF, a manuscript chart entitled A copia of Emmerisicks draught from Aden to the narrow streights of Babelmandell as he says 30 Leags. It covers from the Strait of Bab el Mandel to Aden - that is, it covers a stretch along the Arabian coastline east from the Strait and the island as depicted on the Thornton. With respect to the areas shared by the two works, there is enough similarity to connect them. The Bibliothèque assigns a very tentative c. 1700 to the manuscript, and speculates not at all on the identity of the chartmaker.

The mid-seventeenth century did see regular voyages undertaken by the British East India Company to Mocha, bringing coffee to a newly addicted London; the inset chart of that entrepot's harbor indicates its importance. The appearance of this information in Thornton's 1703 work, and the survival of similar English manuscripts sharing a focus on Mocha and the routes to it, suggests that British navigation through these waters was by then becoming routine.

Publication History and Census

This chart was engraved by John Thornton for inclusion in his Atlas Maritimus or The Sea Atlas, and was added to that work in 1703; it also appeared in the third book of The English Pilot. Soon afterward, Thornton's son Samuel began to take over the business, and at some point after 1703 added his imprint to the chart (Tibbetts assigned a date 1711 to Samuel's edition of thePilot; NYPL dates their Samuel Thornton edition of The Sea Atlas 1702-1707). After Samuel died in 1715, the plates passed to Richard Mount and Thomas Page; examples of the chart printed by them lack any printers' imprint. We see only one example of the separate chart in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in the Mount and Page state (State 3). The Sea Atlas is cataloged by the British Library, New York Public Library, and Yale; the latter two copies are Samuel Thornton editions.

Cartographers

John Thornton (October 8, 1641 - January 23, 1708) was a British chartmaker, sea captain, publisher and engraver active in London during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Thornton apprenticed to John Burston where mastered the art of manuscript maritime cartography as practiced by the Thames School. By the 1660s Thornton, working with John Seller and William Fisher, began publishing printed nautical charts and was the only Thames School cartographers to successfully transition to print. Thornton published numerous maps both independently and with some of the most prominent British publishers of his day, including the aforementioned as well as Herman Moll, Robert Morden, James Clark, Robert Greene, and Philip Lea. From around 1665 Thornton took over from Seller the production of the English Pilot. Upon his death in 1708 Thornton willed his charts, copper plates, instruments, and 'all things belonging to my calling' to his son, Samuel Thornton, who continued to republished his father's work, with few updates, until about 1715.   Further Details...

Samuel Thornton (1665 - October, 1715) was an English map publisher active in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Samuel was the son of John Thornton (1641 - 1708), the second major publisher of the English Pilot. Samuel inherited his father's business and the English Pilot plates in 1708, publishing revised edition of the English Pilot, The Third Book in 1711, and The English Pilot, the Fourth Book. Describing the West-Indian Navigation in 1713. Like his father, Thornton enjoyed a mandate from the British East Indian Company and was their primary chart provider. His name is attached to several charts of the India coast that he added to the English Pilot, The Third Book, 1703. When he died, publication of the English Pilot was taken over by Richard Mount and Thomas Page. They, unlike their predecessors, were not mandated by the British East India Company.   Further Details...

Source

Thornton, S., The Sea-Atlas, (London) 1702-1707.    

Condition

Excellent.

References

OCLC 921702436. (Mount and Page third state). Tibbetts, G. R., Arabia in Early Maps: A Bibliography of Maps Covering the Peninsula of Arabia, Printed in Western Europe from the Invention of Printing to the Year 1751, 176.