Africa
They started in January 1899, leaving Karlovac for Trieste, Italy. They visited Alexandria and Cairo, then walked along the river Nile toward Sudan. After returning to Cairo, they headed to Port Said, Djibouti, and Aden, reaching Bab el Mandeb. After traveling to Obock back in Djibouti, they eventually ended up in Harar and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
There, on the recommendation of several influential Europeans, Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia provided them with an escort of 300 people to continue their expedition to the south. Mirko was appointed governor of the southern province of Ethiopia with his brother Stjepan as his lieutenant-governor. They spent three years defining the border between Ethiopia and Kenya, bringing the tribes under the unified government of Menelik II. Their expedition and military camps near Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf) were named Seljanville and still appear on maps today.
The greatest benefit of the journey was that they expanded the sovereignty of Ethiopia to the right side of the river Omo. The current borders between the states of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya around Lake Turkana are the same as drafted by the Seljan explorers at that time. In 1902, due to political tension, they left, only to return after the end of hostilities between imperial Britain and France (cf. Fashoda Incident).
They were highly regarded by the emperor Menalik II, and received many gifts, some of which are today in the possession of their families; some others are on display in the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb. It is obvious today that the journeys of the two explorers were partly influenced or disrupted by world politics. Nonetheless their initial intention was to enrich their lives and the world with new knowledge and understanding of the world.
Read more about this topic: Mirko And Stjepan Seljan
Famous quotes containing the word africa:
“Everywhere—all over Africa and South America ... you see these suburbs springing up. They represent the optimum of what people want. There’s a certain sort of logic leading towards these immaculate suburbs. And they’re terrifying, because they are the death of the soul.... This is the prison this planet is being turned into.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“America is not civil, whilst Africa is barbarous.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For Africa to me ... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)