author
Gerhard Rohlfs
1831–1896
Drawn to danger and discovery, this German explorer crossed huge stretches of North Africa and became one of the first Europeans known to travel overland from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Guinea. His journeys mixed adventure, travel writing, and firsthand geographic observation.
6 Audiobooks
Von Tripolis nach Alexandrien - 2. Band
by Gerhard Rohlfs
Mein erster Aufenthalt in Marokko und Reise südlich vom Atlas durch die Oasen Draa und Tafilet.
by Gerhard Rohlfs
Beiträge zur Entdeckung und Erforschung Africa's. Berichte aus den Jahren 1870-1875
by Gerhard Rohlfs
Land und Volk in Afrika, Berichte aus den Jahren 1865-1870
by Gerhard Rohlfs
Von Tripolis nach Alexandrien - 1. Band
by Gerhard Rohlfs
About the author
Born in Vegesack near Bremen on April 14, 1831, Gerhard Rohlfs first trained in medicine and also served in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign before turning to exploration. He learned Arabic and spent years traveling in North Africa, sometimes moving in local dress so he could pass more easily through regions that were difficult for Europeans to enter.
Rohlfs is best remembered for major expeditions across the Sahara and for an overland journey from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Guinea in the 1860s. Though later writers sometimes described him as more of an adventurer than a systematic scientist, his travels still produced valuable geographic information and vivid books that introduced many readers to places then little known in Europe.
He was also a prolific author, and his accounts helped shape 19th-century European ideas about African travel and exploration. Rohlfs died on June 2, 1896, in Rüngsdorf near Bonn.