692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the North-German climate promised only to aggravate, Nachtigal was 

 compelled to seek a milder atmosphere in the south, and removed to 

 Algiers, and afterward to Tunis, where he found a lucrative practice, 

 and obtained a knowledge of the Arabic language, and of the man- 

 ners and customs of the j>eople, that proved useful to him in his 

 future explorations. At Tunis he became physician to the Bey, 

 whom he accompanied upon a campaign against some of his rebel- 

 lious subjects. 



Toward the end of 1868 Gerhard Rohlfs came to Tripoli, charged 

 with a commission by the King of Prussia to dispatch an assortment 

 of presents to Sultan Omar, of Bornoo, in acknowledgment of the 

 hospitality he had given and the valuable services he had rendered 

 to the German travelers Earth, Vogel, Overweg, Von Beurmann, and 

 Rohlfs, who had at various times visited his capital, and in return for 

 a silver-mounted harness which he had sent to his Majesty. King 

 William was sending, in response to these favors, a fine collection of 

 European manufactured goods, a throne-chair, and a portrait of him- 

 self. The occasion of this visit was the decisive point in Nachtigal's 

 life. Rohlfs found in him just the man to carry the gifts to their 

 destination, and he, the choice having been approved by Bismarck, 

 left Tripoli, with his caravan of eight camels, on the 18th of February, 

 1869, on his long southern journey, traveling under the name of Edris 

 Effendi. The first stopping-place was at Moorzook, the capital of Fez- 

 zan, where Nachtigal found that the country beyond was in so un- 

 settled a condition, and the roads were so infested, that it would be 

 futile to attempt to continue the journey at that time. Probably a 

 year would have to pass before he could go on. He would not wait 

 idly, and he resolved to use the occasion to make an excursion to the 

 highland country of Tibesti, southeast of Fezzan, the ancient land of 

 the Troglodytes, or cave-dwellers, which had long excited the interest 

 of European travelers, but which no one had ever been able to reach. 

 Its people, the Tibbu, had the worst reputation for robbery and treach- 

 ery of all the Africans. Nachtigal attempted and made the journey 

 from which all others had shrunk. He was smuggled secretly into 

 the country by his guides. The party lost their way and wandered 

 for many days through the desert without food or water, making a 

 near approach to death by thirst. This, as a German biographer de- 

 scribes it, condensing from Nachtigal's own account, in the midst of 

 summer in the burning wilderness, where two days without water 

 meant death. Amid stones and sand, through barren ravines and over 

 rocks, marched the travelers, their parched tongues cleaving to their 

 mouths, and the half skin of water which they still had having to suf- 

 fice for ten persons. The guide went upon a knoll to look around, 

 while the rest of the party hung anxiously upon his eyes as he made 

 his report, " None yet." The exhausted camels lay down, and Nachti- 

 gal by the side of one of them, to die, while the Mohammedan servants 



