Thomson, JOSEPH

Thomson, JOSEPH, traveller, was born at Thornhill in Dumfriesshire in 1858, studied at Edinburgh University, and went as geologist with the Royal Geographical Society's expedition to Lake Tanganyika under Keith Johnston in 1878. On the death of his chief on the coast (1879), Thomson took the command of the expedition, and carried it out with great success. Put at the head of another expedition of the society in 1882, he passed through the Masai country, visited Mount Kenia, Lakes Naivasha and Baringo, and Mount Ligonyi. In the service of the National African Company he made an eminently successful journey on the Niger and to Sokoto. For the Geographical Society he explored southern Morocco, and for a company he made a journey in South Africa. He died, after a long illness, 2d August 1895. See the biography by his brother (1896). Among his works are To the Central African Lakes and Back (1881); Through Masai Land (1885); Ulu, an African Romance (with a collaborator, 1888); Travels in the Atlas (1889); and Life of Mungo Park (1891).