To Timbuktu and across the Sahara

René Caillié · 1827 CE – 1828 CE · Earth

To Timbuktu and across the Sahara — René Caillié · 1827 CE – 1828 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Reach Timbuktu in disguise and bring back a first-hand description of the city and the Niger.

Historical context

Timbuktu had become an obsession of European geography: Mungo Park drowned on the Niger, and the British officer Alexander Gordon Laing, who reached the city in August 1826, was killed in September, days after leaving it. The Société de Géographie offered a prize to the first traveller who reached it from Senegal and brought back exact observations. Caillié, refused backing for the journey, answered by learning Arabic, adopting a Muslim identity and walking there with African caravans on his own savings, without a single European companion.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Kakondy, April 1827

    April 1827

    He joins a Mandinka caravan on the Rio Nuñez as Abdallahi, an Egyptian going home.

  2. Kankan

    1827 CE

    The caravan reaches the great Malinké trading town on the Milo, two months inland.

  3. Five months at Tiémé

    January 1828

    Scurvy and a foot ulcer halt him for five months in a Mandinka village south of Sambatikila.

  4. Djenné

    March 1828

    In March he reaches the inland delta city and takes passage in a river boat for Timbuktu.

  5. Timbuktu, 20 April 1828

    20 April 1828

    He walks into the city Laing had reached two years earlier, and stays a fortnight.

  6. The Taoudenni road

    1828 CE

    He crosses the desert with 1,400 camels bound for Morocco by the Taoudenni salt pans.

  7. Tangier and the prize

    September 1828

    In September he reaches the French consulate, drops the disguise and sails for Toulon.

Outcome

Entered Timbuktu in April 1828, crossed the desert with a caravan from Araouan and reached Tangier alive that September.

René Caillié

Poor French traveller who reached Timbuktu disguised, with African caravans and no European companion, and became the first European to return from it alive with an account.

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Sources

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