694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the wounded, and be did what he could ; but a large proportion of 

 the cases, having received wounds in their vital parts, were past re- 

 covery. Having taken his leave of the Sultan of Bagirmi, Nachtigal, 

 suffering a part of tbe time from fever, made bis way through a 

 flooded country, in which he had to wade or swim the rivers which 

 he had before crossed almost dry, back to Kuka, in Bornoo, where he 

 enjoyed another hospitable reception from Sultan Omar. 



Nachtigal next undertook, in the face of what was considered ex- 

 treme danger, to visit Wadai, on the eastern side of Lake Chad. It 

 was a country of very bad repute. The only European who had ever 

 reached it, Eduard Vogel, had been put to death by the command of 

 the Sultan in 1856. Moritz von Beurmann, who had been sent out to 

 learn Vogel's fate, had been murdered on the borders of the land. It 

 took much courage even to think of a journey there, but Nachtigal 

 had hope in the fact that a new Sultan, a more intelligent man than 

 his predecessors, had come into power. He proceeded cautiously, in 

 doubt as to what kind of a reception he might expect, but gradually 

 found the way cleared, and was finally admitted to an audience from 

 which he came away with a satisfaction he could not, he said in a let- 

 ter to a friend, fully express. "I found Sultan Ali the most intelli- 

 gent prince that reigns in all the Soudan, and was charmed with the 

 friendly greeting he gave me. This was all the more remarkable, be- 

 cause, as I knew, be had at first hesitated to receive me, and was not 

 at all glad that I had come." The murder of Vogel, eighteen years 

 before, had been forgotten by most of the people, and the search for 

 the papers he left was fruitless. 



Nachtigal had by this time become quite exhausted with his five 

 years of arduous travel and dangers, and early in 1874 started home- 

 ward. He went through Darfoor to Kordofan, where, meeting the 

 Egyptian garrison, he almost felt as though he were in Europe. Khe- 

 dive Ismail sent a steamer to bring him to Cairo, and was the first to 

 receive him there. He stayed a year in Cairo to recover a degree of 

 health, and then proceeded to Berlin, where he intended to make his 

 home. 



Here he at once assumed an active position among the scientific 

 men interested in the promotion of geographical research. He was 

 elected President of the German-African Society ; was consulted by 

 the King of the Belgians in the proceedings that have led to the 

 formation of the Congo state, and was a most useful member of the 

 Executive Committee of the " Association Internationale Africaine " ; 

 and was for three years in succession elected President of the German 

 " Gesellschaft f iir Erdkunde," and was its representative at the Inter- 

 national Congresses in Paris in 1875 and 1878, and in Venice in 1881. 

 The Paris Geographical Society voted him its golden medal, and the 

 other similar societies of the world gave him medals or diplomas of 

 honor. He dwelt in Berlin till 1882, busily engaged most of the 



