What's in a name?

[Flutterby]

Osbert Salvin (25 February 1835 – 1 June 1898)

Salvin's Albatross, Salvin's Prion

Osbert Salvin was an English naturalist, ornithologist, and herpetologist best known for co-authoring Biologia Centrali-Americana (1879–1915) with Frederick DuCane Godman. This was a 52 volume encyclopedia on the natural history of Central America.

Salvin was born in Finchley, north London, the second son of the architect Anthony Salvin, of Hawksfold, Sussex. He was educated at Westminster and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, taking his degree in 1857. Shortly afterwards he accompanied his second cousin by marriage, Henry Baker Tristram, in a natural history exploration of Tunisia and eastern Algeria. Their account of this trip was published in The Ibis in 1859 and 1860.

In the autumn of 1857, he made the first of several visits to Guatemala, returning there with Frederick DuCane Godman in 1861. It was during this journey that the Biologia Centrali-Americana was planned.

In 1871 Salvin became editor of The Ibis. He was appointed to the Strickland Curatorship in the University of Cambridge, and produced his Catalogue of the Strickland Collection. He was one of the original members of the British Ornithologists' Union. He produced the volumes on the Trochilidae and the Procellariidae in the Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum. One of his last works was the completion of Lord Lilford's Coloured Figures of British Birds (1897).

Salvin was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Linnean, Zoological and Entomological Societies, and at the time of his death was Secretary of the British Ornithologists' Union.

The Godman-Salvin Medal, a prestigious award of the British Ornithologists' Union, is named after him and Godman.

In the scientific field of herpetology, he described two new species of Central American reptiles: Bothriechis aurifer and Typhlops tenuis. Also, four species of reptiles have been named in his honor: Anolis salvini, Crotalus scutulatus salvini, Sceloporus salvini, and Staurotypus salvinii.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osbert_Salvin

[Lisbeth]

Coenraad Jacob Temminck (31 March 1778 - 30 January 1858)

Temminck's Courser

Coenraad Jacob Temminck was born on 31 March 1778 in Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic. From his father, Jacob Temminck, who was treasurer of the Dutch East India Company with links to numerous travellers and collectors, he inherited a large collection of bird specimens. His father was a good friend of Francois Levaillant who also guided Coenraad.

Temminck's Manuel d'ornithologie, ou Tableau systématique des oiseaux qui se trouvent en Europe (1815) was the standard work on European birds for many years. He was also the author of Histoire naturelle générale des Pigeons et des Gallinacées (1813–1817), Nouveau Recueil de Planches coloriées d'Oiseaux (1820–1839), and contributed to the mammalian sections of Philipp Franz von Siebold's Fauna japonica (1844–1850).

Temminck was the first director of the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden from 1820 until his death. In 1831, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1836 he became member of the Royal Institute, predecessor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Temminck died on 30 January 1858, at the age of 79, in Leiden, Netherlands.

Other species: Temminck's cormorant, Temminck's tragopan, Temminck's stint, Temminck's hornbill, Temminck's fruit-dove etc. etc.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coenraad_Jacob_Temminck

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Alexander Whyte (1834 - 1908)

Whyte's Barbet

Naturalist Alexander Whyte worked in Malawi and Uganda under the British administration from 1891-1904. He sent significant collections of plants to Kew and the British Museum between 1893 and 1899.

Whyte was born in Fettercairn, Scotland, and attended the University of Aberdeen, distinguishing himself in natural history and botany. Before completing his studies he spent time in the West Indies and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where his family had interests, and made significant natural history collections. He decided to remain in Ceylon, settling in Colombo as a naturalist, and was elected a Fellow of the Zoological Society in 1877.

Returning to England in 1890, Whyte found a new position with the British Foreign Office as a botanist, and later chief of scientific staff, under Sir Henry Hamilton Johnston, the new Commissioner of British Central Africa (later Nyasaland and Malawi). Soon after his arrival, Whyte helped to establish the first botanic garden in the region, at Zomba. He made extensive collections of plants over the coming years, including many taxa new to science. He also published accounts of the botany of the region and made zoological collections.

Whyte was made a Fellow of the Linnean Society and an Honorary Fellow of the Zoological Society in 1894. He was awarded the Silver Medal of the latter society in 1897 for his work in British Central Africa.

After a sojourn in England, Whyte was transferred to the Uganda administration in 1898 and there continued his scientific work, in particular establishing experimental gardens. In 1902 he was appointed Director of Agriculture in British East Africa, from which post he retired in the following year. Before returning to England, he explored the natural resources of Liberia in 1904-1905 on behalf of private firms. He died in High Barnet, aged 75.

Source:
http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/ ... m000026213

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Richard Blake Edwards (1848 – c. 1905) & John Deverell Stewart Woodward (1849 – c.1905)

Woodward's Batis

The Woodward brothers were English missionaries and ornithologists. They were born in Bathford, England to Richard and Mary Woodward. Through their field expeditions, specimen collecting and publications, they, along with Arthur Stark, established a basis for 20th-century ornithology in the southern African region.

The brothers were trained as Anglican missionaries and their first mission was in the Americas, at an unknown location. They published on missionary work in the Americas before they moved to the Transvaal in the early 1870s. Here they initially started farming sheep in the Amersfoort district, before moving to Ifafa, Natal, to run a plantation.

They also attended to the nearby St Luke's mission at Harding, where they assisted archdeacon Joseph Barker. They were ordained into the Anglican Church in 1881 at Pietermaritzburg, and by 1883 they were assistant priests at St Luke's. From 1884 they associated with the American Board of Foreign Missions which had stations at Hlatikulu, Zululand, and at the Adam's mission, Amanzimtoti. Their consequent missionary activities and expeditions were undertaken from these missions.

The brothers had a keen interest in the animal life of the region, which was poorly described in the 1870s. Within a decade of their arrival they started publishing observations concerning crocodiles, baboons and leopards in The Zoologist and The Natal Mercury. Their observations were catalogued, and controlled experiments were performed on some animals. From 1880 onwards much of their interest was focussed on the birds of the region. The brothers undertook exploratory expeditions to the Lebombo Mountains and Ngoye Forest in Zululand.

For the first time species like eastern nicator and Livingstone's turaco were found to occur south of the Zambezi. In the forest that still covered the Berea ridge at Port Natal, they collected the type specimen of the garden warbler's eastern race, Sylvia borin woodwardi. It was deemed a new African species, S. woodwardi, when it was named in their honour in 1877. In addition they discovered the isolated southern population of the green barbet at Ngoye forest, which Captain Shelley named for them in 1895, Stactolaema woodwardi. In 1900 their other discovery, Woodward's batis, was also named for them by Shelley, B. fratrum referring to the brothers.

Their ornithological publication, Natal Birds of 1899, introduced 386 bird species of Zululand, the Colony of Natal and the eastern Cape Colony. It constituted the first regional list for southern Africa, and recorded the status of many species. The small book is a sought after collector's item, but mainly for its historical interest. Through the brothers' efforts the early specimen collection of G. Hutchinson was preserved, and interest in regional conservation was increased. They are also known from many letters, as well as articles written for The Natal Mercury, Ibis and other overseas natural history magazines.

It is not yet known where the brothers were buried, and their publication Wanderings in America has not been traced. By some accounts one of the brothers drowned in the Tugela River.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodward_brothers

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Wilhelm Peter Eduard Simon Rüppell (20 November 1794 – 10 December 1884)

Rüppell's Vulture, Rüppell's Parrot, Rüppell's Korhaan

Eduard Rüppell was a German naturalist and explorer. Rüppell is occasionally transliterated to "Rueppell" for the English alphabet.

Rüppell was born at Frankfurt-on-Main, the son of a very prosperous banker. He was originally destined to be a merchant, but after a visit to Sinai in 1817 he developed an interest in natural history. He attended lectures at the University of Pavia and University of Genoa in botany and zoology.

Rüppell set off on his first expedition in 1821, accompanied by surgeon Michael Hey as his assistant. They travelled through the Sinai desert, and in 1822 were the first European explorers to reach the Gulf of Aqaba. They then proceeded to Alexandria via Mount Sinai. In 1823 they travelled up the Nile to Nubia, collecting specimens in the area south of Ambukol, returning to Cairo in July 1825. A planned journey through Ethiopia only reached as far as Massawa, where the party suffered ill health.

Rüppell returned to Europe in 1827. During his absence Philipp Jakob Cretzschmar had used specimens sent back by Rüppell to produce the Atlas zu der Reise im nordlichen Afrika (Atlas of Travels in northern Africa) (1826).

In 1830 Rüppell returned to Africa, and became the first naturalist to traverse Ethiopia.

Rüppell also published an account of his travels, entitled Travels in Abyssinia.

Other species bearing his name inlcude:
Rüppell's agama, Rüppell's black chat, Rüppell's broad-nosed bat, Rüppell's desert chameleon, Rüppell's fox, Rüppell's horseshoe bat, Rüppell's pipistrelle, Rüppell's robin-chat, Rüppell's snake-eyed skink, Rüppell's starling, Rüppell's warbler, Rüppell's weaver

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_R%C3%BCppell

[Lisbeth]

Edgar Leopold Layard (23 July 1824 – 1 January 1900)

Layard's tit-babbler, Layard's parakeet

Layard was a British diplomat and a naturalist mainly interested in ornithology and to a lesser extent the molluscs. He worked for a significant part of his life in Ceylon and later in South Africa, Fiji and New Caledonia. He studied the zoology of these places and established natural history museums in Sri Lanka and South Africa. Several species of animals are named after him.

Born in the Berti Palace, Florence, Italy, to an English family of Huguenot descent, Layard was the youngest of seven sons (two of the earlier siblings died in infancy[1]) of Henry Peter John Layard[2] of the Ceylon Civil Service (the son of Charles Peter Layard, dean of Bristol, and grandson of Daniel Peter Layard the physician) with his wife Marianne, a daughter of Nathaniel Austen, banker, of Ramsgate. Through her, he was partly of Spanish descent. His uncle was Benjamin Austen, a London solicitor and close friend of Benjamin Disraeli in the 1820s and 1830s. His oldest brother was the archaeologist and politician Sir Austen Henry Layard. Layard attributed his early interest in natural history to the lack of siblings close to his age. Lacking playmates, he spent time making collections of shells and butterflies. His interests were not approved of by his father who approved only of literary tastes. When he was ten years old the family returned from Italy to England in Surrey. Layard's father died soon after and his mother moved with the children to her parental home in Ramsgate. Here Layard met a taxidermist and naturalist Mr.Thompson (Layard describes his as "of the “Elnis”" and mentions that he was sometime Mayor of Ramsgate) and learnt to skin and mount birds. After going to school at Richmond he moved to Wheaton Aston and then to Cambridge. He was to join the clergy but influenced by Leonard Jenyns and Col. Babbington, he felt attracted to zoology. He also met a woman with a taste for zoology who he would later marry. Layard chose to go to Canada but found it too cold and returned after 18 months. Now 21 he heard from a cousin of a vacancy in Ceylon for someone with mechanical skills to work on machinery in a coffee estate. He married Barbara Anne, daughter of Reverend John Calthrop on 18 October 1848 and travelled to Ceylon with his wife, now skilled in art, so as to assist him in his zoological studies. Reaching Ceylon he fell ill and was attended to by Dr. Robert Templeton (1802–1892). Noticing the butterfly nets, the two became close friends who pursued the study of lepidoptera. Templeton also influenced Sir J.E. Tennent to find Layard an appointment. Layard was appointed a Custom House officer at Balliganbay. A correspondence with Edward Blyth changed his focus from botany to zoology and birds. Blyth sent him a list of all 182 of the known birds from Ceylon and sought specimens of poorly-known species. Layard valued his correspondence with Blyth greatly and was saddened by his death: This was the beginning of a correspondence continued monthly for years, & of the pleasure & profit it was to me, I can give no idea. I used carefully to bind up his letters as they came, & I often now, when I see them, think with a sad heart of the bright intelligence and vast ornithological knowledge that sank with him, in shadows, in the grave.[1]

Layard spent ten years in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where he studied the local fauna with Robert Templeton. He was forced to leave Ceylon by his and his wife's poor health. Most of their children died in infancy. Before leaving Ceylon, Layard's collection resulted in the number of species going from 182 to 318 species. On one occasion, he was able to use his natural history skills while settling a land dispute in Ceylon between two neighbouring farmers. He settled the disputed position of a filled up drain by digging them up and noticing the remains of a species of mollusc, which was later named after him as Tortulosa layardi (Pfeiffer 1851), along the true drain path. His collections were sent off to England and amounted to 9 tons.[1]

In 1854, he went to the Cape Colony as a civil servant working in the service of the governor George Edward Grey (1812–1898). In addition, from 1855 Layard also took on a spare time position as curator of the South African Museum, and carried out extensive improvements at his own expense as well as building up the museum's collection and exhibits.[3] In December 1855 Charles Darwin wrote to Layard with a description of his research investigating "the variation & origin of species", and requested assistance in obtaining specimens of domesticated animals and birds, particularly pigeons.[4] Layard wrote back, and in June Darwin thanked him cordially for his "very valuable letter". In an expedition from October 1856 to March 1857, Layard visited Mauritius, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Madagascar, and ports on the southern coast of South Africa.[5] In 1865 Layard found a whale which became known as the strap-toothed whale or the Layard's beaked whale, and was formally named Mesoplodon layardii. His work at the Mixed Commission ended when it was abolished in 1870, and Layard then had to return to Britain.[3] He was succeeded at the museum by Roland Trimen. Subsequently, Layard had posts in Brazil, where he collected birds for Arthur Hay (1824–1878).

Edgar Layard administered the government of Fiji from 1874 to 1875 and was honorary British Consul at Noumea, New Caledonia from 1876.[2] Layard was appointed as an arbitrator to the British and Portuguese Commission at the Cape of Good Hope in 1862.[6] Edgar Layard and his son, Edgar Leopold Calthrop Layard (referred to in the literature as either E.L.C. Layard or Leopold Layard to differentiate him from his father), were active collectors in this region, mainly of bird specimens. Between 1870 and 1881, they visited Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, New Britain and Norfolk Island. Aside from the South African material, the bird collections they made from their 'home base' of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands are the most scientifically important. The Layards sent material to William Sharp MacLeay in Sydney, but also to many other ornithologists. Their specimens have become very scattered. Many went to the British Museum in London. Others went to Henry Baker Tristram, and are now in the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside in Liverpool, England.

In 1867, Layard published The Birds of South Africa, where he described 702 species.[7] This work was later updated by Richard Bowdler Sharpe (1847–1909).

Layard wrote in his biographical notes:[1]

I don't profess to be a scientific naturalist, I have Never been rich enough to purchase the books required for the study, and my life has been spent in countries where no museums existed, save those I myself established. In Ceylon I founded a museum in connection with the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Calcutta, what became of it I do not know, after my connection with the island was severed. At the Cape, the Museum also of my founding still flourishes. All I lay claim to is a certain knowledge of the life history of the Birds of the countries I have inhabited. I have followed them assiduously with their nature haunts, and watched them as closely as I could, and what I have seen I have recorded.
Layard's first wife, Barbara Anne Calthrop (died 1886), whom he married in 1845,[2] is commemorated in the specific epithet of Layard's parakeet (Psittacula calthropae) and he named the brown-breasted flycatcher (Muscicapa muttui) after his Tamil cook, Muttu who he considered as his "fidus Achates" or faithful follower.[8] Only one son survived from the first marriage Edgar Leopold Calthorp Layard (born 21 Sep 1848). Layard married Jane Catherine Blackhall, daughter of General Robert Blackhall, in 1887.

Layard died in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, England on 1 January 1900.

Several species are named after Layard including Layard's tit-babbler (Sylvia layardi) and the squirrel, Funambulus layardi. A species of lizard endemic to Sri Lanka, Nessia layardi (originally placed in the genus Acontias) was named after him by Edward Frederick Kelaart.[9]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Leopold_Layard

[Flutterby]

Captain George Ernest Shelley (15 May 1840 – 29 November 1910)

Shelley's Sunbird, Shelley's Francolin

George Ernest Shelley was an English geologist and ornithologist.

He was the son of John Shelley, who was a younger brother of the famous poet Percy B. Shelley (1792-1822). Ernest may have been trained as a geologist, but in 1863 joined the Grenadier Guards. After a few years, having attained the rank of captain, he resigned his commission to become an ornithologist. He started publishing in The Ibis in 1870, describing two new birds from Egypt. In 1872 he and T.E. Buckley described their "Two months bird collecting on the Gold Coast" (now Ghana) and during the next two years he described various new birds from West Africa. According to his obituary he was then sent to South Africa to do a geological survey and wrote Three months on the coast of South Africa, with reference to the birds he saw there, in The Ibis (1875).

Shelley was a good shot and enjoyed collecting birds. Most of his time in South Africa appears to have been spent in Natal, while at some time he also travelled in Ethiopia. He published some 40 papers, most of them in The Ibis. From about 1880 these dealt mainly with birds from East and Central Africa, particularly Malawi. The Zoological Society of London elected him as one of its Fellows and he published a number of papers in its Proceedings between 1878 and 1889. One of these was On some new species of birds from South Africa: Anthus butleri; Sphenoeacus natalensis (1882). He also published several important ornithological books, starting with A handbook to the birds of Egypt, which was intended for hunters and collectors and was illustrated by G. Keulemans. This was followed by A monograph of the Nectariniidae, or family of Sun-birds, illustrated with coloured plates, again based on Keulemans's drawings. The book refers to the work of South African collectors and authors such as E.L. Layard, C.J. Andersson* and F. le Vaillant. He was assisted in its compilation by another British ornithologist, Dr B.Sharpe of the British Museum, and had access to the collection of Sun-birds of the Marquis of Tweeddale. Originally he named the family Cinnyridae, but changed the name to Nectariniidae shortly before final publication.

In 1896 Shelley published the first volume of his monumental work The birds of Africa, comprising all the species which occur in the Ethiopian region. The first part of Volume 5 appeared in 1906, but soon thereafter he suffered a paralysing stroke and died after a long illness. Volume 5, Part 2 was completed and edited by W.L. Sclater* and published in 1912. Naturally the volumes include many references to the birds of southern Africa. Shelley had a very good memory, was painstaking in his work and an excellent writer. The South African Ornithologists' Union elected him as an honorary member in 1904. The southern African bird species Scleroptila shelleyi (Shelley's Francolin, of which his collection contained the type specimen) and Cinnyris shelleyi (Shelley's Sunbird) were named after him, as were other African species.

Source:
http://www.s2a3.org.za/bio/Biograph_fin ... erial=2568
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ernest_Shelley

[Flutterby]

Johan August Wahlberg (9 October 1810 - 6 March 1856)

Wahlberg's Eagle

Wahlberg was a Swedish naturalist and explorer. He started studying chemistry at the University of Uppsala in 1829, and later forestry, agronomy and natural science, graduating from the Swedish Forestry Institute in 1834. In 1832 he joined Professor Carl Henrik Boheman, a famous entomologist, on a collecting trip to Norway. In 1833 and 1834 he travelled in Sweden and Germany on forestry research projects. He joined the Office of Land Survey and was appointed an engineer in 1836, becoming an instructor at the Swedish Land Survey College.

He travelled in southern Africa between 1838 and 1856, sending thousands of natural history specimens back to Sweden. He was exploring the Okavango area when he was killed, along the Thamalakane river about 10 km northwest of Maun in today´s Botswana, by a wounded elephant.

Before his death was known in Sweden, on October 8, 1856 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, since the news of his death had not reached Stockholm at this time. He is thus the only member of this academy who has been elected after his death.

Wahlberg is commemorated in Wahlberg's eagle, Wahlberg's honeyguide, Wahlberg's cormorant, Wahlberg's epauletted fruit bat, the bush squeaker Arthroleptis wahlbergii, and a tree Entada wahlbergi. He is also commemorated in the scientific names of three species and one subspecies of lizards: Afroablepharus wahlbergi, Colopus wahlbergii, Homopholis wahlbergii, and Trachylepis striata wahlbergi.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_August_Wahlberg

[Lisbeth]

Theodor von Heuglin (20 marzo 1824 - 5 novembre 1876)

Heuglin's Robin, Heuglin's Wheatear, Heuglin's Masked-Weaver, Heuglin's Bustard

Heuglin was born in Hirschlanden (now part of Ditzingen) in Württemberg. His father was a Protestant pastor, and he was trained to be a mining engineer. He was ambitious, however, to become a scientific investigator of unknown regions, and with that object studied the natural sciences, especially zoology.

In 1850 he went to Egypt where he learnt Arabic, and visited the Red Sea and Sinai. In 1852 he accompanied Dr. Christian Reitz, Austrian consul at Khartoum, on a journey to Ethiopia, and after Reitz’s death was appointed his successor in the consulate. While he held this post he travelled in Ethiopia and Kordofan, making a valuable collection of natural history specimens. In 1857 he journeyed through the coast lands of the African side of the Red Sea, and along the Somali coast.

In 1860 he was chosen as leader of an expedition to search for Eduard Vogel, his companions including Werner Munzinger, Gottlob Kinzelbach, and Hermann Steudner. In June 1861 the party landed at Massawa, having instructions to go direct to Khartoum and then to Ouaddai, where Vogel was thought to be detained. Heuglin, accompanied by Hermann Steudner, made a wide detour through Abyssinia and the Galla country, and in consequence the leadership of the expedition was taken from him. He and Steudner reached Khartoum in 1862 and there joined the party organized by Alexandrine Tinné and her mother Henriette Tinne-van Capellen, who then had just returned from a White Nile journey to Gondokoro. With both women and on their own account they explored a great part of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, where Steudner died of fever on 10 April 1863 and Alexine's mother on 20 July.

After having reached Cairo with Alexandrine Tinne, Heuglin returned to Europe in February 1864. In 1870 and 1871 he made a valuable series of explorations in Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya; but 1875 found him again in north-east Africa, in the country of the Beni, Amer and northern Abyssinia. He was preparing for an exploration of the island of Socotra, when he died in Stuttgart. It is principally by his zoological, and more especially his ornithological, labours that Heuglin has taken rank as an independent authority.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_von_Heuglin

[Flutterby]

James Sligo Jameson (1856–1888)

Jameson's Firefinch

James Jameson was an Irish naturalist and African traveller and was heir to the Jameson Irish Whiskey empire. He was born in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Ireland. After elementary education at Scottish schools, in 1868 he was placed under Dr. Leonard Schmitz at the International College, Isleworth, and read for the army, but in 1877 he decided to devote himself to travel. In that year he went by way of Ceylon and Singapore to Borneo, where he was the first to discover the black pern, a kind of honey-buzzard, and he returned home with a fine collection of birds, butterflies, and beetles. Towards the end of 1878 he went out to South Africa in search of big game, and hunted for a few weeks on the skirts of the Kalahari desert. In the early part of 1879 he returned to Potchefstroom, and reached the Zambezi district of the interior, trekking along the Great Marico river and up the Limpopo. In company with Mr. H. Collison he next passed into the country of the Matabelis, whose king received them hospitably, and joined by the well-known African hunter, Mr. F. C. Selous, they pushed on into Mashonaland. They made their final halt near the Umvuli river, and hunted lions and rhinoceroses. In 1881 Jameson returned to England with a collection of large heads as well as ornithological, entomological, and botanical specimens. ‘This expedition to Mashona,’ writes Mr. Bowdler Sharpe, ‘added a great deal to our knowledge of the birds of South-East Africa.’

In 1887, Jameson joined the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition as a naturalist, under the direction of Sir H. M. Stanley. They reached Banana at the mouth of the Congo in March. In June 1887 he was left as second in command of the rear-column under Major Walter Barttelot, at Yambuya on the Aruwhimi river, while Mr. Stanley's party pushed further into the interior in search of Emin.

The Horrible Jameson Affair
While on expedition in Africa, Jameson decided that he not only wanted to witness cannibalism first-hand, he also wanted the opportunity to sketch it. Accounts differ on how everything happened, but all seem to agree that he paid the price of six handkerchiefs to buy a young slave girl, either 10 or 11 years old, depending on which account you read. He then donated the girl to some friendly cannibals so he could watch them kill and eat her. In November 1890, the New York Times published two differing accounts of what happened. The first came on November 14, from Swahili interpreter Assad Farran, who allegedly came along on the trip and claimed to be an eyewitness to this atrocious act. By the time these accusations came to light, Jameson himself was dead, so Jameson’s wife submitted a letter dated August 8, 1888 to the NYT in her late husband’s defense. It was published on November 15, 1890. Another account exists in the biography about explorer Henry Morton Stanley, titled Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer (published by Yale University Press in 2008). According to author Tim Jeal, one of Stanley’s assistants, seeking to deflect attention from himself, told Stanley about this horrible thing that Jameson had allegedly done. Stanley was skeptical, and intended to question Jameson about the incident himself. But then he found Jameson’s journal, which corroborated the entire horrible incident. Jameson’s account of the incident reads a little differently than Farran’s. Jameson writes that the whole thing started as a joke, and that he wanted to see if cannibalism was a real thing after one of his guides started telling him about cannibal tribes in the area they were traveling in.

Excerpt from Jameson's journal:
“I sent my boy for six handkerchiefs, thinking it was all a joke, and that they were not in earnest, but presently a man appeared, leading a young girl of about ten years old by the hand, and I then witnessed the most horribly sickening sight I am ever likely to see in my life. He plunged a knife quickly into her breast twice, and she fell on her face, turning over on her side. Three men then ran forward, and began to cut up the body of the girl; finally her head was cut off, and not a particle remained, each man taking his piece away down the river to wash it. The most extraordinary thing was that the girl never uttered a sound, nor struggled, until she fell.

Until the last moment, I could not believe that they were in earnest. I have heard many stories of this kind since I have been in this country, but never could believe them, and I never would have been such a beast as to witness this, but I could not bring myself to believe that it was anything save a ruse to get money out of me, until the last moment.

The girl was a slave captured from a village close to this town, and the cannibals were Wacusu slaves, and natives of this place, called Mculusi. When I went home I tried to make some small sketches of the scene while still fresh in my memory, not that it is ever likely to fade from it. No one here seemed to be in the least astonished at it.”

On 10 August 1888 he contracted hæmaturic fever, and on 17 August, the day after his arrival at Bangala, he died. On the 18th he was buried on an island in the Congo opposite the village.

A small but valuable collection of birds and insects which Jameson made at Yambuya was sent home in 1890. The bulk of his collections remains with his widow; but a valuable portion of the ornithological collections has been placed by Captain Shelley, to whom Jameson gave it, in the Natural History Museum, Kensington. His ‘Diary’ of the Emin Pasha expedition was published in 1890.

Sources:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Jameson, ... go_(DNB00)
https://firstwefeast.com/drink/2015/02/ ... -cannibals