Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs: Difference between revisions

'''Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs''' ([[April 14]], [[1831]] - [[June 2]], [[1896]]) was a [[Germany|German]] [[geography|geographer]], explorer, author and adventurer. He was born at [[Bremen-Vegesack|Vegesack]], near [[Bremen]]. There was much pressure on Rohlfs to be in the medicine field, and he eventually joined the French Foreign Legion in a medical capacity. Serving for some time as a personal physician to a Moroccan nobleman, he eventually set off on his own, exploring the oases of Morocco. It was on this trip that he was attacked and left for dead, his leg almost severed from his body. These injuries would keep him from returning to Europe for most of his life; the cold weather somehow aggravating them. After this trip, Rohlfs was the first [[Europe]]an to cross [[Africa]] north to south. His route took him from [[Tripoli]] through the [[Sahara desert]], over [[Lake Chad]], along the [[Niger River]] to the [[Gulf of Guinea]] from [[1865]]-[[1867]]. He was to the second European explorer to visit the region of the [[Draa River]] in the south of [[Morocco]]. In [[1874]] Rohlfs set out from [[Dakhla Oasis]] intending to reach [[Kufra]]. In February he was sixty miles north of [[Abu Ballas]] (Pottery Hill) in the [[Western Desert (North Africa)|Western Desert]]. Accompanied by [[Karl Alfred von Zittel|Karl Zittel]] and a surveyor called Jordans, Rohlfs and his colleagues experienced a downpouring of [[rain]] - a rare occurrence in the desert, seemingly only happening every twenty years. Rohlf's team restocked and watered their camels and left a [[cairn]] at the place he had named ''Regenfeld'' (Rainfield) <ref> W.B. Kennedy Shaw, Long Range Desert Group, Greenhill Books 2000</ref>. He wrote:

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