[ Alexander Keith Johnston; mapmaker/explorer; Livingstone ] Autograph Note Signed Keith Johnston to Messrs. Hindley & Sons expecting a delivery of specimen map cases.

One page, 12mo, foxed and stained but text clear and complete, laid down in slightly larger piece of a paper on the base of which the biography of his father, a distinguished cartographer, is summarised. He says, I shall be glad to have the specimen map cases ordered on 22nd as soon as these can be got ready/ | [Signed] Keith Johnston | Ass[istan]t Curator [RGS]. A.K. Johnston the Younger was presumably preparing for his journey to Paraguay where he from 1873 to 1875 was geographer to a commission for the survey of Paraguay. This experience led to his involvement in controversy: Keith Johnston became embroiled in the great controversies of the time surrounding Livingstone's claims to finding the source of the Nile. Frustrated with his deskbound job, he conducted a survey of the Paraguayan-Brazil border, where his adventures were to establish his reputation as a competent explorer and ultimately led to his leadership of the Royal Geographical Society's expedition to find a feasible trade route to the central lakes of Africa. The influence of David Livingstone and his tense encounters with H.M. Stanley provide a background to the final fraught relationship with his colleague, Joseph Thomson, during their prolonged stay in Zanzibar.Shortly after the expedition into the interior began, Johnston contracted dysentery and tragically died in the village of Behobeho at the early age of 34. A scarce autograph.