Timbuktu: Reise durch Marokko, die Sahara und den Sudan

Abstract

AS we have already intimated, Dr. Lenz is about to set out on a new expedition, the purpose of which is to explore the unknown region lying between the upper waters of the Nile and the northern bend of the Congo. The reputation of a scientific explorer already earned by Dr. Lenz through his researches in the Ogoway basin will be much enhanced by the present work, embodying the results of a very successful expedition to North-West Africa, undertaken in the years 1879–80 on behalf of the German African Society. His original commission was restricted to a visit to Marokko, chiefly with a view to a more thorough survey of the Atlas highlands than had hitherto been effected by recent travellers in that still little known region. But the sanction of the Society was easily obtained to extend the field of his operations, so as, if possible, to embrace the still less known section of the Sahara lying between Marokko and the Niger. Timbuktu, the southern terminus of the caravan routes across this part of the desert, thus became the main goal of the expedition. The famous “Queen of the Wilderness” had been reached during the present century only by three European travellers—Major Laing in 1826, René Caillé in 1828, and Barth in 1853. To these illustrious names must now be added that of Oskar Lenz, who not only entered the place on July 1, 1880, mainly by a new route from the north, but also for the first time made his way thence westwards through the Fulah and Negro States of Moássina (Massina) and Bambara down the Senegal river to the Atlantic coast at St. Louis, capital of the French possessions in Senegambia. Hence the most important result of the journey has been to show that Timbuktu, hitherto regarded as practically inaccessible to Europeans, may be reached both through Marokko from the north and through the Senegal basin from the west.

Timbuktu: Reise durch Marokko, die Sahara und den Sudan.

Von Dr. Oskar Lenz. 2 vols, (Leipzig, 1884.)