Introduction

Summary

From the end of January 1863 until mid-December 1864, the Dutch traveller Alexine Tinne and the German zoologist Theodor von Heuglin (hereafter: Heuglin) carried out an expedition to the vast region of the Gazelle-river, a western tributary of the White Nile also known as the Bahr el-Ghazal (the Arabian name). Their private fortune enabled Alexine and her mother, Henriette Tinne-van Capellen, to prepare and maintain an expedition of immense proportions. No expense was spared. A steamboat was engaged together with transport vessels for the accompanying people, beasts of burden, and provisions. Guides, attendants, crew, servants and soldiers were hired, together forming a ‘train’ of more than 150 people, which after three months had increased to more than 550.

The enterprise initially seemed to offer much promise. However, as a journey it was far from successful. The expedition ended in disillusion after only four months. Its members were almost incessantly struck by fevers and dysentery due to the marshy area, and this gave the journey a most disastrous turn. Heuglin recounted later about their return to Khartoum:

Scarcely fourteen months had passed since the flotilla set sail from here, with many-colored pendants, and amid song, beating of drums, and firing of muskets, laughing at all dangers, and not foreseeing that the expedition must already carry in itself the germ of its destruction. The pendants have been torn to shreds by the storm; the black mourning flag floats from the stern of the ships; not with music and song, but mute, bowed down, and broken, the diminished little party re-enters Khartoum.

Henriette van Capellen, two European maids, and a companion of Heuglin had fallen victim to the fatal diseases that perpetually hovered over these swampy African regions. And soon after Alexine's arrival back in Khartoum in May 1864, Adriana van Capellen, Henriette's sister, who had not accompanied the expedition, died.

The story of the Bahr el-Ghazal expedition revolves around two more or less contrapositive themes: wealth, which was the main factor enabling the Tinnes to accomplish their enterprise, and death, which ultimately caused the abortion of the expedition. This book will delve into these themes extensively as we follow Alexine Tinne and Theodor von Heuglin through to the aftermath of the expedition.