Nachtigal

Nachtigal, GUSTAV, German traveller, was born 23d February 1834, at Eichstedt, between Magdeburg and Wittenberg, studied medicine, and served as army surgeon until 1863. In that year he went to North Africa, suffering from a chest disease. In 1838, through the influence of Rohlfis, he was selected to carry presents from the king of Prussia to the sultan of Bornu. Starting from Tripoli in 1869, he travelled by way of Fezzan and Tibesti to Bornu, made excursions into the states of Borgu and Bagirmi, and returned home by way of Wadai, Dar-Fûr, Kordofan, and Cairo, where he arrived on 22d November 1874. This long and successful journey, in the course of which he visited, the first of Europeans, the native states of Tibesti, Borgu, and Wadai, put him in the forefront of modern travellers. His vast collection of most valuable information was written down in the three vols. of Sahara und Sudan (1879-89). In 1884 Nachtigal was commissioned to annex for Germany Togoland, Cameroons, and Lüderitzland (Angra Pequena) on the west coast of Africa. He died on the return journey off Cape Palmas, 19th April 1885, and was buried on that rocky promontory; but in 1887 his bones were removed to German soil in the Cameroons. See Dorothea Berlin's Erinnerungen an Nachtigal (1887).