French traveler and travel writer who explored West Africa, was born in 1799 in Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon in the Deux-Sèvres region of France. His family was extremely poor. Caillié’s father had been banished to work as a prisoner rowing on government boats before he was born. His mother died very young. According to his later account of his travels in West Africa, Caillié had dreamed of reaching the fabled trade center of Timbuktu on the banks of the Niger River since he was a child. Whether or not this actually was the case, Caillié did manage to reach the Senegalese town of Saint Louis in 1815 He stayed there for several months and tried to join an English expedition up the Gambia River This project did not work out He then spent some time working on the French Caribbean colony of Guadeloupe but soon returned to Senegal He came back to ...
Article
James McCarthy
Scottish explorer and geographer of Africa, was born in Edinburgh in 1844. Alexander Keith Johnston was the son of the eminent geographer and cartographer of the same name, who had established the highly respected engraving and mapmaking firm of W. & A. K. Johnston with his brother William. Although the young Keith was educated at prestigious schools in the Scottish capital, he was also tutored carefully by his father, and learned those European languages in which significant geographical material was published. Like his father, Keith’s interest extended well beyond conventional cartography, and he made important contributions to oceanography, hydrology, and global climatic influences. Both were influential figures in the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), itself the most important national institution in the promotion of worldwide discovery and the development of the nineteenth-century British Empire, not least in Africa.
After a period as superintendent of drawing and engraving at the prestigious ...
Article
Jeremy Rich
colonial official and explorer, was born on 17 July 1858 in Chandernagor, a tiny city and former French colonial enclave in southern India. When Liotard's parents, Pierre Liotard and Hélène Liotard (née Durup de Dombal), died while Victor-Théophile was a very young boy, several families of doctors and pharmacists helped to raise Liotard. With their support Liotard eventually studied at a secondary school in Rochefort, France. He enrolled at the Ecole de Médicine Navale in Rochefort in 1882 after a short stay in Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. On 28 July 1883 Liotard graduated from medical school with a degree as a pharmacist. From 1884 to 1885 Liotard served on the Iles du Salut in French Guiana South America where he helped to battle a yellow fever epidemic Reassigned briefly to Cherbourg the French naval headquarters Liotard received orders to serve in the French colonial medical service in the ...
