HEUGLIN, THEODOR VON (1824-1876), German traveller in north-east Africa,
was born on the 20th of March 1824 at Hirschlanden near Leonberg in
Wurttemberg. His father was a Protestant pastor, and he was trained to
be a mining engineer. He was ambitious, however, to become a scientific
investigator of unknown regions, and with that object studied the
natural sciences, especially zoology. In 1850 he went to Egypt where he
learnt Arabic, afterwards visiting Arabia Petraea. In 1852 he
accompanied Dr Reitz, Austrian consul at Khartum, on a journey to
Abyssinia, and in the next year was appointed Dr Reitz's successor in
the consulate. While he held this post he travelled in Abyssinia and
Kordofan, making a valuable collection of natural history specimens. In
1857 he journeyed through the coast lands of the African side of the Red
Sea, and along the Somali coast. In 1860 he was chosen leader of an
expedition to search for Eduard Vogel, his companions including Werner
Munzinger, Gottlob Kinzelbach, and Dr Hermann Steudner. In June 1861 the
party landed at Massawa, having instructions to go direct to Khartum and
thence to Wadai, where Vogel was thought to be detained. Heuglin,
accompanied by Dr Steudner, turned aside and made a wide detour through
Abyssinia and the Galla country, and in consequence the leadership of
the expedition was taken from him. He and Steudner reached Khartum in
1862 and there joined the party organized by Miss Tinne. With her or on
their own account, they travelled up the White Nile to Gondokoro and
explored a great part of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, where Steudner died of
fever on the 10th of April 1863. Heuglin returned to Europe at the end
of 1864. In 1870 and 1871 he made a valuable series of explorations in
Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya; but 1875 found him again in north-east
Africa, in the country of the Beni Amer and northern Abyssinia. He was
preparing for an exploration of the island of Sokotra, when he died, at
Stuttgart, on the 5th of November 1876. It is principally by his
zoological, and more especially his ornithological, labours that Heuglin
has taken rank as an independent authority.
His chief works are _Systematische Ubersicht der Vogel
Nordost-Afrikas_ (1855); _Reisen in Nordost-Afrika, 1852-1853_ (Gotha,
1857); _Syst. Ubersicht der Saugetiere Nordost-Afrikas_ (Vienna,
1867); _Reise nach Abessinien, den Gala-Landern_, &c., _1861-1862_
(Jena, 1868); _Reise in das Gebiet des Weissen Nil_, &c. _1862-1864_
(Leipzig, 1869); _Reisen nach dem Nordpolarmeer, 1870-1871_
(Brunswick, 1872-1874); _Ornithologie von Nordost-Afrika_ (Cassel,
1869-1875); _Reise in Nordost-Afrika_ (Brunswick, 1877, 2 vols.) A
list of the more important of his numerous contributions to
_Petermann's Mitteilungen_ will be found in that serial for 1877 at
the close of the necrological notice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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