René Caillié

René Caillié ( born November 19, 1799 in Mauzé -sur -le- Mignon ( Deux -Sèvres ), France, † May 17 1838 in La Gripperie -Saint -Symphorien at Rochefort ) was a French explorer of Africa.

Life

His first trip to Africa undertook Caillié age of 17. From the Senegalese port city of Saint -Louis, he marched along the coast south to Dakar and ran a commercial boat to Martinique, where he stayed for half a year before he returned to France. 1818 brought him a second trip to West Africa.

On the third voyage in 1824 he crossed the Senegal in the north to penetrate into Arab territory. In the Mauritanian region Brakna he stayed for speech preparation for a trip to the Sahara for eight months, among others, at a marabout tribal group ( Zwāyā, so scribes ) on. He provided the first report of a European for the nomadic culture of Bidhans in this area. The planned research trip he had to move first, because he could not muster enough financial support.

After two years as a supervisor in an indigo plantation in Sierra Leone, he had enough money together in order to make the journey. From the Rio Nunez in Guinea in 1827 he marched east to the headwaters of the Senegal and on to Niger. In 1828 he reached alone and spending as a Muslim, the second European after Alexander Gordon Laing Timbuktu. From there he crossed the Sahara from Morocco and returned back to Europe.

Since Laing was killed in Africa, Caillié was the first who reported in Europe from Timbuktu. Because of his descriptions of simple mud houses and dusty paths that he found instead of the expected wealth, Caillié saw in Europe partially subject to fierce criticism; especially on the British side was subordinate to him, he had never been in Timbuktu. On the one hand he wanted to not lose weight, that was once so rich Timbuktu was turned into an impoverished trading post. Secondly, it was alleged that he had never been in Timbuktu, but had so exploited in a roundabout way about with the help of the French consul in Tripoli, the records of the murdered Laing concerned and this. Only the German explorer Heinrich Barth, who was staying in the caravan city from September 1853 to April 1854, Caillié could rehabilitate fully.

Works

• René Caillié: Journey to Timbuktu from 1824 to 1828. (Ed. H. Pleticha ) Edition Erdmann, Tübingen 2006, ISBN 3-86503-037-8. Reprint: Marixverlag, Edition Erdmann, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 9,783,865,398,345th