Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs (14 April 1831 – 2 June 1896) was a German geographer, explorer, author and adventurer.
Biography
Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs was born at Vegesack, later part of Bremen. His father was a physician, and encouraged Rohlfs to join the field of medicine. After the ordinary course at the gymnasium of Osnabrück, he entered the Bremen corps in 1848, and took part as a volunteer in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, being made an officer after the battle of Idstedt (July 1850). Rohlfs then became a medical student, and studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Würzburg, and Göttingen. He wanted to travel, and joined the French Foreign Legion in a medical capacity, serving during the conquest of Kabylia. He attained the highest rank open to a foreigner, and was decorated for bravery as Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Having learned Arabic and the mode of life of the inhabitants, in 1861 he went to Morocco, and was for some time personal physician to a nobleman there.
Rohlfs then set off on his own, exploring the oases of Morocco. During this trip 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 aggravating them. In 1864 he continued his travels in Morocco, and crossed the Atlas Mountains to the oasis of Tuat. His description and map of the country were the first made from personal observation and with scientific knowledge.
After this trip, and a short visit to Germany, Rohlfs returned to Africa, and, disguised as an Arab (going so far as to have himself circumcised), was the first European to cross Africa from Tripoli across the Sahara desert via Lake Chad and along the Niger River and to present-day Lagos on the Gulf of Guinea from 1865 to 1867. He was the second European explorer to visit the region of the Draa River in southern Morocco. For this work he was awarded the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London in 1868. Rohlfs's detailed account of it is contained in the Ergänzungsheft ("Supplement") No. 34 to Petermann's Geographische Mittheilungen (Gotha, 1872).
