René-Auguste Caillié (1799-1838) got the honor of being the first European (at least in modern times) to visit Timbuktu and return alive.
Timbuktu, the name evokes exotic images, in the early nineteenth century even more than now. Europeans had heared about the city through writers like Leo Africanus and Ibn Battuta, telling of a rich, golden city, across the Sahara on the Niger river. But Timbuktu was also a forbidden city, laying in an area where being a christian might well be enough to get one killed. Mungo Park had passed the city in 1805, during his descent of the Niger, and Alexander Laing had visited it crossing the desert from Tripoli, but both had died before returning to the coast. A Frenchman called René-Auguste Caillié took up the challenge.
Caillié was a poor son of a baker's assistent, left on his own after his mother died and his father went to prison. As a child, he had read Robinson Crusoe and travel stories, later also books on geography and maps, and he decided he wanted to be an explorer. Africa, which was still largely 'unknown territory', caught most of his interest. At the age of 16, he took a job as a cabin boy on a ship to Senegal. There, he joined an expedition to look for Mungo Park, but fell ill, and returned to france. A second attempt to make a voyage of exploration in 1824 was as unsuccesfull, but in 1826 he was in Africa again, determined to reach Timbuktu.
He was convinced that a good disguise was essential for his undertaking, and for many months he lived in a Moorish village, studying Arabic and the Koran. Next, he had to get the money for his exploit. He asked the local governor, but got refused. Then he went to the british in Sierra Leone. Again he was unsuccesful, but in a job with the local authorities he made enough money so that in March 1827, he could leave from Rio Nunez, halfway between Freetown and Senegal. He had already prepared by spreading the rumour that he was Egyptian, taken to Senegal as a boy by Napoleon's soldiers, and now wanting to return home.
He reached the Niger at Kouroussa, and travelled on to Kankan and Tieme. Here he had wanted to take a caravan to Djenne, but was too ill, suffering from scurvy. He would pray to God to get the release of death, but after five months in good care of a local family he got better, and in January 1828 he took the caravan to Djenne. From there he travelled to Timbuktu by ship. Caillié was kept in the hold among the slaves, hardly having space to move.
On April 19, he finally set eyes on the city that had been his goal, but it proved a disappointment:
I looked around, and found that the sight before me, did not answer my expectations of Timbuctoo. The city presented, at first view, nothing but a mass of ill-looking houses, built of earth. Nothing was to be seen in all directions but immense plains of quicksand of a yellowish white colour. The sky was pale red as far as the horizon; all nature wore a dreary aspect, and the most prfound silence prevailed; not even the warbling of a bird was to be heard. (as quoted in Newby 1975).The gold mines were depleted, and Timbuktu was a city not only lacking in riches, but even in basic items like food and firewood. The only thing that reminded of the past grandeur, were two large mosques. Caillié lived in the city for two weeks, in a house opposite the one that Laing had occupied before.
Caillié left with a caravan to Morocco. He suffered thirst during the crossing of the Sahara; he could think of nothing but water. He also feared that his disguise would be seen through, but reached Tanger safely, and there made his true identity known to the French consul, who helped him return to France.
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