Eduard Robert Flegel
Eduard Robert Flegel (born 1 Oktoberjul / October 13 1852greg in Vilnius, .. † September 11, 1886 in Brass, Nigeria ) was a German explorer and explorer.
Biography
Flegel was from 1869 an employee of a bookstore in Riga, 1872 attended business school in Munich and turned in the same year to Hamburg to work in a wholesale company for tobacco products. In 1875 he accepted a position in a trading post of the Hamburg trading company Gaisser and Witt in Lagos ( Nigeria).
1879 Flegel took an expedition to the Cameroon Mountains. In July of that year he sailed on the English mission steamer Henry Venn the Benue, where he arrived about 200 km further upstream than the most successful travelers William Balfour Baikie 1854. His works were of great importance for the study of the river.
Flegel visited with the support of the German African Society 1880 Nupe and Sokoto to let themselves exhibit of the local rulers recommendation letter for visiting the countries in the Benue. In April 1881 he returned to Rabbah. From there he joined in November a land trip to Lako at Benu and reached after a temporary return to sea on July 31, 1882 Yola, capital of Adamawa. On August 18, he finally discovered at Ngaundere the sources of the Benue. In March 1883 he was back in Lagos.
A new journey, where he hoped to press south to the Congo, took him for a second time on the southern watershed of the Benue, but could not continue deeper into the interior due to the outbreak of hostilities.
Mid- 1884 Flegel returned to Europe, where he agitated for German trading settlements in the Niger - Benue area. In trade circles he found no understanding of the new requirements, but rather to the African society and the German colonial club. From the Reich Research Fund for Africa it means for a new business venture were granted, also commissioned him the Emperor Wilhelm I with concerning the delivery of gifts to the Caliph of Sokoto.
With the beginning of the German colonial rule over Cameroon in 1884 Flegel at the service of German interests and sought as far as possible to extend the German supremacy in the interior. In April 1885 Flegel took his third trip to Africa, but prevented him from a low water level of the Benue at the fast progress. Also, the British had established the Royal Niger Company already on the Niger and Benue, so that he could not achieve a decisive success. On the way to Yola, he received the recall to Europe in July 1886.
Eduard Robert Flegel died on September 11, 1886 on the coast in Brass.
Works
- Karl Flegel (ed.): Letters from Africa. Leipzig ( 1890)
- Loose leaves from the diary of my Hausa friends. Hamburg ( 1885)