Alphabetical Index Index by Year of Birth
René Caillié
* 1799 in Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon
+ 1838 in La Gripperie-Saint-Symphorien near Rochefort
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Auguste René Caillie was a French explorer and the first European to return alive from the town of Timbuktu.
Caillie had been preceded at Timbuktu by a British officer, Major Gordon Laing,
who was murdered in September 1826 on leaving the city.
Disguised as a Muslim, Caillie stayed there for two weeks, and won a prize of 9,000 francs
offered by the Société de Géographie in Paris for the first person to return with a description of Timbuktu.
2021 J. Giesen