A GERMAN EXPLORER.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12566, 1 August 1905, Page 7

A GERMAN EXPLORER.

. Tho British as a nation are supposed to bo deeply interested in travel and exploration, but it is a little surprising to find the death of a famous explore! like Hermann yon Wissmann passing almost unnoticed. Wissmann was a soldier by profession, but he seems to havo had a partiality for scientific studies, and when the opportunity presented itself in 1880 he joined an African expedition under Dr Pogge. He was then twenty-seven years old. This was in tho early days, comparatively, of Central African exploration, and Wissmann contributed not a little to our knowledge of tho equatorial region. Twice he crossed tho African continent, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, the first time at the head of an expedition organised by tho German African Society, and at the second time at the request of tho King of the Belgians. lie explored the Congo region, and mapped tho river boundary for the Belgian Go vertiment, so that his work was not purely German in character. In the winter of 1887-88, ho was selected by Prince Bismarck to suppress the Arab rising in East Africa, a commission which ho carried out with brilliant success. He spent several years in scientific and -administrative work in the colony, and then returned to Germany. In 1892 he accepted the commission of the Anti-Slavery Committee to transport tli>) steamer which bore his name along tho route of the Zambesi and Lake Ng-..-asaa to.. Tanganyika,,. In 1895 Wissmann .was appointed. Governor-of East impost which, however, .IV©-only-held to tho end of 1896^ the state of his health obliging h'jm to return home. He was received in Germany with great honour, but for the last eight years he lived in complete retirement. He shot himself, accidentally, it is supposed, while deerstalking on June 15. The German newspapers, according to a brief London message, speak of him as one of tho most eminent of African explorers, and unit© in praise of his loyalty to" duty and his single-mindedness.