Following a stint in the military, von der Decken first travelled to eastern Africa in May 1860. There he explored the region around Lake Nyasa, only a year after David Livingstone had been the first European to reach the area. The following year, von der Decken set out from Mombasa to survey the Kilimanjaro massif. During the journey inland, he met the young EnglishgeologistRichard Thornton (1838–1863) [1]– who had left Livingstone's Zambezi expedition– and invited him to accompany him to Kilimanjaro. When the massif loomed into view, it was the first time it had been sighted by Europeans since Johannes Rebmann had been the first European to see it in 1848.
Von der Decken and Thornton surveyed the area, accurately estimating Mount Kilimanjaro's height to be around 20,000 feet above sea level. However, when their party attempted to climb the mountain, poor weather kept them from gaining any more than a few thousand feet. On von der Decken's return the following year, this time accompanied by fellow German explorer and chemist Otto Kersten, their party's attempt to climb the mountain reached around 14,000 feet. Once again, however, deteriorating weather conditions (and, according to Kersten's account,[2] uncooperative porters) prevented the party from climbing any higher. The expedition was not wholly in vain, however, as close observations of Kilimanjaro's snowcapped summit were made.
In 1863, von der Decken turned his attention away from Kilimanjaro and visited Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands off the coast of eastern Africa. In 1865, he visited Somalia and became one of the first Europeans to explore the lower reaches of the Jubba River, on board the small steamshipWelf. After the Welf foundered in rapids beyond Bardera, he and three others in his party were murdered by local Somalis.
Legacy
Although von der Decken failed to reach Mount Kilimanjaro's summit, his and Richard Thornton's data ended the debate as to whether there was any settled snow or ice in tropical Africa. During his 1862 expedition, von der Decken also became the first European to record a sighting of Mount Meru, located forty or so miles to the west of Mount Kilimanjaro. These achievements, together with his descriptions of the area – including that of the bird subsequently named after him, the Von der Decken's hornbill– earned von der Decken the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1864. Lobelia deckenii, a species of giant lobelia native to the East African mountains, was also named after him.
Steamship Welf on exploration of the Jubba River 36m long and smaller boat 9m long
Steamship Welf construction plan
Rest Under a Big Tree
Kilimandscharo, woodcut 1869 by Ernst Heyn, was created with the help of a drawing by v. d. Decken
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The Jubba River or Juba River is a river in southern Somalia which flows through the autonomous region of Jubaland. It begins at the border with Ethiopia, where the Dawa and Ganale Dorya rivers meet, and flows directly south to the Somali Sea, where it empties at the Goobweyn juncture. The Jubba basin covers an area of 749,000 km2 (289,000 sq mi). The Somali regional state of Jubaland, formerly called Trans-Juba, is named after the river.
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Von der Decken's hornbill is a hornbill found in East Africa, especially to the east of the East African Rift, from Ethiopia south to Tanzania. It is found mainly in thorn scrub and similar arid habitats. Jackson's hornbill is often treated as a subspecies of it. It was named after the German explorer Baron Karl Klaus von der Decken (1833–1865).
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von der Decken is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
The von der Decken family is the name of an old Hanoverian family of German nobility. Since more than 750 years the center of the family is in a part of Lower Saxony at the south bank of the river Elbe called Kehdingen.
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Mainland Tanzania refers to the part of Tanzania on the continent of Africa; excluding the islands of Zanzibar. It corresponds with the area of the former country of Tanganyika.
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