"The first European to cross the Sahara from the north to south." Allaby, Exploration (2010)
"Most interesting."-Pictorial World
"As an explorer, Rohlfs stands next to Barth and Livingstone." -Athenaeum
"A traveller and explorer whose adventures remind us of Barth and Bruce."-Hour.
"We have not read a book with so much pleasure for some time."-Literary World
"We recommend his volume to all lovers of adventurous travel."-Examiner
Disguised as an Arab, Gerhard Rohlfs was the first European to cross Africa from Tripoli across the Sahara desert from north to south. He travelled via Lake Chad and along the Niger River and to present-day Lagos on the Gulf of Guinea from 1865-1867. He was the second European explorer to visit the region of the Draa River in the south of Morocco. For this work, in 1868 he was awarded the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London.
Rohlfs's detailed account of his time in Morocco and the Sahara is contained in his 1874 book "Adventures in Morocco and Journeys Through the Oases of Draa and Tafilet." (Rohlf's English book does not list a specific translator; in 1874 in the magazine Athenaeum, Rohlfs in specifying the translator merely states that "at my wish, Messrs. Low caused an English translation to be made.")
Rohlfs' accounts of his experience in Morocco reads more like an adventure novel than history. Several times he was attacked by robbers and left for dead; and once, covered with nine wounds, he lay for two days and three nights in the desert: there he found good Samaritans in the inhabitants of a neighboring oasis, who kindly cared for him, and enabled him to resume his travels.
He had scarcely entered on his first journey in this inhospitable country when he was robbed of every thing that he possessed; but, declining to turn back, he had the courage to press on to the first grand sheriff and apply for the position of surgeon in the army. Thus he obtained, and was soon promoted to the post of body-physician to the Governor, and thus obtained access to the royal city of Fez, the residence of the Emperor.
Rohlfs thus was given permission to travel throughout the empire with imperial protection, which he did with so much the more success on account of his experience, and the acquisition of the Arabic tongue during his stay. He was now prepared to be as good a Moslem as any of them, and adopted this disguise to insure his safety and success.
The tribes of Morocco seem to have made but little progress. They ate with their fingers out of a common dish, and thought it an attention to a stranger to fish out the choice pieces and stuff them into his mouth. One fifth of the population consists of Arabian invaders, and the remainder are native Berbers.
According to Rohlfs very few of the Berbers understood the Koran, the prayers, or the religious precepts, which are all in the Arabic tongue; yet, nevertheless, they were the most radical Moslems, and threatened several times to murder Rohlfs, whom they suspected of being a "Christian dog."
Rohlf's life was always saved by the intervention of the Governor's son, who was a distant descendant of the Mohamed; whose influence was all-powerful. He finally gave Rohlfs a document acknowledging distant relationship with the traveler, and thus the possibility of his having a particle of sacred blood in his veins saved him from violence on several occasions, and proved a safe conduct through manifold dangers.
Having made well nigh the circuit of Morocco, skirting the Atlantic seaboard from Tangiers southwards, besides long intervals of sojourn in the Sahara, and penetrating to the Oases of Draa and Tafi.
