Species Cailliea cinerea

For René Caillié (1799–1838), French explorer. The orphaned son of a prison convict, uneducated, frail and thin, he read Robinson Crusoe which kindled in him a love of travel and adventure. In 1818, aged 16, he made a voyage to Senegal, and again in 1824. That year the Paris-based Société de Géographie offered a 10 000 franc reward to the first European to see and return alive from Timbuktu. Caillié learned Arabic, the laws and customs of Islam, and started his exploration in 1827. He reached Timbuktu, ‘a small, unimportant, and poor village’, in 1828 and won the 10 000 francs prize, was awarded the Legion of Honour and a pension. His threevolume book Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo; and across the Great Desert, to Morocco (1824–1828) was published at public expense.