Niebuhr, KARSTEN

Niebuhr, KARSTEN, a distinguished geographer and traveller, was born in 1733, in the Hanoverian territory of Hadeln. He spent several years as a day-labourer; but having acquired a small property, he studied at Göttingen, entered the Danish service, and in 1761 joined an expedition to explore portions of Arabia, Persia, Asiatic Turkey, and India. On his return to Denmark in 1767 he published the results of his mission, Beschreibung von Arabien (Copenhagen, 1772), and Reisebeschreibung (3 vols. 1774-98). He also edited and published at his own cost the natural history notes of his deceased friend and fellow-traveller, P. Forskål, Descriptiones Animalium (1775) and Flora Egyptiaco-Arabica (1776). He accepted in 1778 a civil post at Meldorf, in the Ditmarsh district of Holstein, then Danish. He died 26th April 1815. See his son's Leben Niebuhrs (1817).