From Left: The explorers Hugh Clapperton, F.W. Beechey and Dixon Denham

Libya: Archaeology and Civilisation (Part 28)

Centuries ago, the vast country of Libya proved to be very ‘fertile’ land for a great number of explorers, scientists and travellers, and after the expeditions mentioned in the last article, particularly by Dr Joseph Ritchie and Captain Francis Lyon, others followed during the years 1821 and 1822. Foremost of these was that led by Frederick William Beechey, artist, explorer, hydrographer, and author whose expedition is recorded as one of the more rewarding at that period in time.

Frederick William (February 17, 1796 – November 29, 1856) was an English naval officer, artist, explorer, hydrographer and author.

Frederick William Beechey came from an artistic family, his father being a well-known portrait painter and member of the Royal Academy of Arts and his mother an accomplished painter of miniatures. Two of his brothers became recognised artists and Frederick William applied his own talents in sketching to the illustration of his naval expeditions.


Frederick William saw active service during the wars with France and America. In 1818 he served under Lieutenant (afterwards Sir) John Franklin in David Buchan's Arctic expedition, of which at a later period he published a narrative. In the following year he accompanied Lieutenant W. E. Parry in the Hecla.

In 1821, he took part in the survey of the Mediterranean coast of Africa under the direction of Captain (afterwards Admiral) William Henry Smyth. On board the vessel ‘Adventure’, Beechey carried out what many travel writers have described as an epoch-making hydrographic and topographic expedition along the Libyan coast.

The adventurer, accompanied by his brother Henry, a civilian member of the expedition, ostensibly sailed along the Libyan littoral from Tripoli in the west, to Derna in the East, making made an overland survey of this coast. At the time this was regarded as an accurate record for the mapping of the region.

The brothers Beechey published a full account of their work in 1828 under the title of “Proceedings of the Expedition to Explore the Northern Coast of Africa from Tripoli Eastward in 1821-1822”.

It goes to great length and painstaking detail to explain life along the Libyan littoral at the turn of the century.

Even today, that report is still considered to be unique, in the sense that it served to explain in a logical manner some of the so-called mysteries of the African continent

Henry Beechey is also said to have been an excellent painter, and there’s even documented evidence to show that the brothers carried out some excellent artistic works during the voyage from Tripoli to Derna. But there are no records to show where his paintings ended up, if they have survived at all.

By the time the expedition by the Beechey brothers was coming to an end in 1822, the London African Society set up another expedition through which it was hoped, mysteries would be unravelled.

The object was, that the expedition would make a new attempt to reach Central Africa through Tripoli and the Fezzan region.

The attempt considered to be the southward crossing of the Sahara was entrusted in the hands of London-born Major Dixon Denham who had enthusiastically volunteered to take on the position as head of the expedition along with Dr Walter Oudney and a young naval lieutenant turned explorer, Captain Hugh Clapperton, who had been sent by the British government via Tripoli to the central Sudan. Dixon joined the expedition at Murzuq in the Fezzan.

The Denham expedition has been recorded in great detail. It started in Tripoli in 1822 and eventually reached the region of the Fezzan and settled for some time in Ghat and later in Kooka, which was then regarded as the capital of the Bornu.

Once more, tragedy was to strike and this time it was Dr Oudney who died of tropical fever in the attempt that Captain Clapperton had made to reach the Niger.

At the time, finding the promised escort not forthcoming, Denham, whose energy was boundless, had separated himself from the rest of the expedition to explore, alone, the course of the river Shari. Denham explored to the southeast, examining the Shari River, the principal source of Lake Chad.

Clapperton went south and west in an attempt to reach Timbuktu, but the most strenuous of his journeys was the fifteen hundred mile journey across the central Sahara from Fezzan to Lake Chad. It took them two and a half months. Horses were luxurious mounts in the desert, since extra camels were needed to service them on the passages between wells.

One camel, carrying six water skins each weighing some 50lbs, was needed to transport the water for a single horse. Other camels were needed to carry the fodder - dried corn and grass and blocks of compressed dates. And as the journey progressed, even these arrangements were put at risk when camels collapsed on the road and their loads had to be redistributed among other animals, or carried by men.

Following the death of Dr Oudney, the expedition got together again, and after exploring the Waube and Logone rivers as well, Denham rejoined Clapperton at a settlement south of Lake Chad, and the two eventually made their way northward back to Tripoli where they arrived almost three years later, in January 1825.

That, apparently brought to an end the efforts by the London African Society to explore the African continent, and once they had returned to the British capital, the two survivors published a report on their journey which they titled “Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the years 1822, 1823 and 1824”.

However, although he died during the mission, Dr Oudney has also been given credit for the compilation of this important report.

JOSEPH CUTAJAR

(to be continued..)