Junker, V.V.: Report on a Seven-Year Journey through Equatorial Africa

Title

Doklad o semiletnem puteshestvii po Ekvatorial’noi Afrike, “Izvestiia Russkogo Geograficheskogo obshchestva”, Sankt-Peterburg 1887, 23, p. 413-436

Report on a Seven-Year Journey through Equatorial Africa

Keywords

Summary

The account of Vasilii Junker’s expedition to Africa was published in the 23^rd volume of the Report of the Russian Geographical Society for 1887, in the section titled “Geographic News”. The article bears a subtitle: “Read at the official assembly of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society on April 9, 1887”. In the opening, the author claims that this is his second journey to Africa, extended over seven years due to various unforeseen events. The author focuses on the state of affairs in Equatoria after the revolt led by Muhammad Ahmad. The journey begins with the author travelling from Suez to Suakin, then on to Berber and Khartoum, before heading to Bahr-el-Ghazal. In May, he leaves Dem Bekir and moves south towards the Uele River and the Mangbattu region, which he reaches in August. While in Mangbattu, he interacts with the local people and various ethnic groups, who are often in conflict with one another, and decides to visit Prince Bakangai of the Niam-Niam tribe, located south of the Uele River. Meanwhile, an Egyptian army sent by Emin Pasha arrives in Mangbattu to restore order. Mambanga, the chief of the Mangbattu people, resists the army. The author steps in as an intermediary between Mambanga and the Egyptian government representative while waiting for Emin Pasha’s reinforcements. In August 1882, the author leaves the Uele River area and heads north. In December, he begins a new journey that continues until May 1883, exploring the Uele-Makua region. However, he is forced to spend several months waiting to return to Bahr-el-Ghazal, as ongoing conflicts between various tribes make travel impossible. In May, Emin Pasha invites the author to Divan, where he learns that Bahr-el-Ghazal has been conquered by Mahdist forces. The author then moves to the southern station of Emin Pasha’s province, staying in Dufile, and in September returns to Lado, hoping for the arrival of a steamboat from Khartoum. In April 1885, he receives news from Emin Pasha that the station at Amadi had been lost. In January 1886, the author meets Emin Pasha and the Italian traveller Gaetano Casati for the last time, crosses Lake Albert-Nyanza to Kibiro, and manages to exchange letters with missionaries in Uganda, who advise him not to cross the Ugandan border too soon. After some time, he receives permission from King Mwanga to cross the border, and after a long journey, he reaches the sea and Zanzibar. Meanwhile, Stanley’s expedition to rescue Emin Pasha and the author’s companions is on the way to Central Africa. The author concludes his report by expressing hope that the European prisoners will eventually be freed from Mahdist captivity.

Bio

Vasilii (Wilhelm) Junker was an ethnographer and explorer of Africa, born in Moscow in 1840; he studied medicine in St. Petersburg, Göttingen, Berlin and Prague. After graduating, he briefly practised medicine in St. Petersburg, devoting his later life to research on the African continent. He visited Iceland (1869), Western Africa (1873), Tunis (1874), lower Egypt (1875), and went up the Blue Nile to Khartoum (1876). After three years spent in this region, he returned to Europe, but went back the following year (1879) to continue his explorations of the Nile. In 1886, after numerous adventures, he reached Zanzibar. In 1887 he received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. In the following years Junker lived mainly in Vienna, working on the materials collected in Africa and publishing Reisen in Afrika (Vienna 1889-1891), in which he gives an account in three volumes of his travels and adventures. Junker died in St. Petersburg in 1892.

Sources

Iu. Dmitrievskii, Russkie issledovateli prirody vostochnogo Sudana, “Uchenye zapiski Vologodskogo pedagogicheskogo instituta”, 1952, 10;

M. Zabrodskaia, Russkie puteshestvenniki po Afrike, Moskva 1955;

B. Val’skaia, Vklad russkogo geogr. obshch. v izuchenie Afriki, “Strany i narody Vostoka”, 1969, 9, p. 5-18;

M. Gornung, I. Oleinikov, Geograficheskoe izuchenie Afriki v Rossii, in Izuchenie Afriki v Rossii (dorevoliutsionnogo perioda), ed. by A. Davidson, G. Nersesov, Moskva 1977, p. 30-71.

M.E.