LAING, ALEXANDER GORDON (17931826)

This article appears in Volume V16, Page 83 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: KRO-LAP

LAING, ALEXANDER GORDON (17931826) , Scottish explorer, the first European to reach Timbuktu, was born at Edinburgh on the 27th of December 1793. He was educated by his father, William Laing, a private teacher of classics, and at Edinburgh University. In 1811 he went to Barbados as clerk to his maternal uncle Colonel (afterwards General) Gabriel Gordon. Through General Sir George Beckwith,

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

of Barbados, he obtained an ensigncy in the

York

Light Infantry. He was employed in the West Indies, and in 1822 was promoted to a company in the Royal African Corps. In that year, while with his regiment at Sierra Leone, he was sent by the

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

, Sir Charles

MacCarthy

MACCARTHY, DENIS FLORENCE (1817-1882)

, to the Mandingo country, with the double object of opening up commerce and endeavouring to abolish the slave trade in that region. Later in the same year Laing visited Falaba, the

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

of the Sulima country, and ascertained the source of the Rokell. He endeavoured to reach the source of the Niger, but was stopped by the natives. He was, however, enabled to fix it with approximate accuracy. He took an active part in the Ashanti War of 1823-24, and was sent home with thedespatches containing the news of the death in action of Sir Charles

MacCarthy

MACCARTHY, DENIS FLORENCE (1817-1882)

. Henry, 3rd

Earl

EARL

Bathurst, then secretary for the colonies, instructed Captain Laing to undertake a journey, via

Tripoli

and Timbuktu, to further elucidate the hydrography of the Niger basin. Laing left England in February 1825, and at

Tripoli

on the 14th of July following he married Emma Warring-ton, daughter of the British

consul

. Two days later, leaving his bride behind, he started to cross the Sahara, being accompanied by a sheikh who was subsequently accused of planning his murder. Ghadames was reached, by an indirect route, in October 1825, and in December Laing was in the Tuat territory, where he was well received by the Tuareg. On the loth of January 1826 he left Tuat, and made for Timbuktu across the desert of Tanezroft. Letters from him written in May and July following told of sufferings from fever and the plundering of his caravan by Tuareg, Laing being wounded in twenty-four places in the fighting. Another letter dated from Timbuktu on the 21st of September announced his arrival in that city on the preceding 18th of August, and the insecurity of his position owing to the hostility of the Fula chieftain Bello, then ruling the city. He added that he intended leaving Timbuktu in three days' time. No further news was received from the traveller. From native information it was ascertained that he left Timbuktu on the day he had planned and was murdered on the night of the 26th of September 1826. His papers were never recovered, though it is believed that they were secretly brought to Tripoli in 1828. In 1903 the French government placed a tablet bearing the name of the explorer and the date of his visit on the

house

occupied by him during his thirty-eight days' stay in Timbuktu.
While in England in 1824 Laing prepared a narrative of his earlier journeys, which was published in 1825 and entitled Travels in the Timannee, Kooranko and Soolima Countries, in Western Africa.

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