Rohlf, GERHARD

Rohlf, GERHARD, German traveller in Africa, was born at Vegesack near Bremen on 14th April 1832, studied medicine at Heidelberg, Würzburg, and Göttingen, and joined (1855) the Foreign Legion serving in Algeria. Having learned Arabic and made himself thoroughly familiar with Mohammedan customs, he set off (1861) for Morocco, travelled through that country under the protection of the Grand Sherif, and was exploring the Wady Draa in the Sahara (1862) when he was attacked by his own guides, plundered, and left for dead in the desert. Two marabouts found him and carried him back to Algeria. In 1864 he again visited the Sahara, getting to Tuat and Ghadames; in 1865 he was in Fezzan and Tibesti; in 1866 in Bornu, whence he made for the Benue, and so reached the Niger. He accompanied the British expedition to Abyssinia in 1868; and was then sent to carry presents from the king of Prussia to the sultan of Bornu. In 1873-74 he was commissioned by the khedive of Egypt to lead an expedition to the oasis of Sivah (Jupiter Ammon) in the Libyan Desert. The German government in 1878 sent him to carry presents from the emperor to the sultan of Wadai; but the expedition was attacked and driven back by Arabs in the oasis of Kufra. The last mission of Rohlf was from the German emperor to Abyssinia in 1885. He died 2d June 1896. Most of his journeys he described in separate books, such as, e.g., Reise durch Marokko (4th ed. 1884); Reise durch Nord-Africa in 1865-67 (1868 and 1873, in Petermanns Mitteilungen); Land und Volk in Afrika (1870); Quer durch Afrika (1874); and several others.