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| Romanian Explorers in Africa |
| (2011-10-22) |
| Last updated: 2011-10-28 15:19 EET |
Last week we were talking of Iulius Popper, a Romanian explorer who first mapped Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. Today’s edition will be focusing on other Romanian explorers of far away lands, this time Africa. Dimitrie and Nicolae Ghica-Comanesti, father and son, came from an old family of nobles, counting among their ancestors rulers of the kingdoms of Moldavia and Wallachia.
They added to the old name of Ghica that of Comanesti because Comanesti was the village around which they had their family lands. They both held state office, Nicolae reaching the positions of minister and governor of the National Bank. In addition, they love adventure, traveling and hunting. Their love of the latter took them to the horn of Africa in 1895 and 1896. University lecturer Silviu Negut told us about this expedition:
‘In 1895 an English earl, Ernest Hoys, had published a travel journal called “In the Country of the Somalis”, and they were so impressed by it that they said they wanted to go there. It was a proper expedition, with lots of camels and a lot of people. They had 72 camels, four horses, 2 mules, along with 57 Somalis with guns and three young men with spears. They had an expedition leaders and two skilled hunters, called Shikali’.
The trip took 124 days, following the well known Leopard River, the Webi Shebeli. The professor told us about the trip:
‘They didn’t just hunt, as the journal of the expedition shows, they took down notes on what they saw and the weather, sometimes several times daily. They went even further than the Englishman that had inspired them. Since they could not cross Leopard River where the earl had crossed, they went downstream and crossed at a point they named Ghica Ford’.
They hunted local animals, and even brought back home a few. Silviu Negut gave us details:
‘They brought back lions and antelopes. One of the species of antelope they brought back was some of the rarest on the planet, the oryx antelope. They also saw midget antelopes, the dik-dik, who are no larger than a rabbit. They also brought back elephants and rhinoceros, first with camels, then by boat to Austria, where they were stuffed by a great expert, then they brought them back to Romania. They also studied the flora. They described 65 species of plants, of which 16 were unknown. One of them was named after them, Ghikeea. They then returned to their country.’
Three years later, in 1899, Nicolae Ghica-Comanesti left by himself on another expedition, this time to north western Africa. They then went on two trips to North America, in 1910 and 1911. they crossed the US to the Pacific coast and Canada. He died in 1921, only 46 years of age, before his father, Dimitrie Ghica-Comanesti, who died in 1923, at the ripe age of 84.
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2026-06-19
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