He got married two days before his departure. On July 14, 1825, British Army Major Alexander Gordon Laing placed a ring on Emma's finger, the daughter of British consul in Tripoli Hammer Warrington (and, through her mother, Jane-Eliza Pryce, probably an illegitimate granddaughter of George IV). And on the 16th, he set off into the desert in search of Timbuktu, a city that had ignited the imagination of Europeans for centuries but where no white man had set foot.
It was a rushed wedding that Emma's parents had opposed because Laing came from a poor family. It was never consummated. Warrington, who had a violent character even by the standards of 200 years ago, officiated the ceremony as consul but opposed the newlyweds sleeping together until the Anglican Church ratified the union. Laing left before the approval arrived. And he never returned. He was strangled for not being a Muslim 15 months later.
Exactly two centuries have passed since Laing and Emma's farewell. But their story has faded from memory. The first European to reach Timbuktu after crossing the Sahara alone and who was killed on the return journey has been forgotten, despite his life being more suitable for a series than a movie, from his origins in Scotland - like most of the great British explorers - through his 13 years as a soldier and four years of exploring West Africa, to his mysterious assassination in the Sahara by the Tuareg, a tribe now idealized but who were then the most brutal slave traders and the most fanatical Muslims.
When he embarked on the journey to Timbuktu, Laing had served on the West African coast, fought in what is now Angola in the first of the so-called Ashanti Wars, which pitted the United Kingdom against that African nation for eight decades, and learned, literally through experience, lessons on tropical diseases, logistics, and diplomacy. For all that, the British government selected him for the great geographical challenge of the era: to reach Timbuktu by land from the Mediterranean, crossing the Sahara and returning with evidence. It was not a scientific expedition. Great Britain and France were engaged in a race to control the Niger Basin. Reaching the great city on the riverbanks, Timbuktu, was key to achieving that goal. All of this depended on one person: Laing.
So he set off from Tripoli in 1825 with letters of introduction, gifts for potential allies, and a Tuareg escort whose loyalty depended on payments, prudence, and luck.
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What followed was a slow test of survival. When Laing had traveled about 400 kilometers through the desert and was near the oasis of Ghadames - which has been inhabited continuously for at least 6,000 years - a group of Tuaregs decided to kill him because he was a Christian. They shot him at point-blank range while he slept, and in the ensuing scuffle, they stabbed him in the head, neck, and arm. Miraculously, Laing survived. He never considered turning back. His letters to Tripoli only reflected two ideas: his love for Emma and the French arriving in Timbuktu before him.
Laing crossed the El Hoggar mountains where the tribes that had wanted to kill him resided, and entered the Tanezrouft desert, one of the most desolate regions of the Sahara, to the extent that in 2009 the European Space Agency gave it a name that has stuck in scientific and popular imagination: the 'Land of Terror'. Laing continued through a territory now controlled by the Islamic State (IS) and whose inhabitants were already prone to the most extreme fundamentalism back then. He was not only brave but also stubborn. He never dressed like the people of the region. He always wore his uniform. Laing had decided he would openly reach Timbuktu, without camouflage, dressed as a British officer.
In August 1826, he succeeded. Timbuktu, with its incredible architecture in the eyes of Europeans, received him with indifference. Laing observed what he could, greeted the notables, and assessed a city that held secrets. A few weeks later, he headed north towards the salt mines of Taoudenni, which were then - as they are today - extracted by hand in the middle of the Sahara, under unimaginably horrific conditions. The only change in these 200 years is that today the salt is transported by truck to Timbuktu. The plan was to continue north, cross the Sahara, and reach the Mediterranean.
Laing only made it about 250 kilometers north of Timbuktu, where the village of Araouane is located, in what is now Niger. There, caravans used to store goods before crossing the Sahara to Ghadames, on the border between present-day Algeria and Morocco.
And, just like in Ghadames, Laing drew the attention of fanatics in Araouane. The Tuareg chief ordered his men to kill the infidel. They refused. The sheikh then ordered two black slaves to strangle him with a turban. His papers - including his diaries, observations, drawings of the region, and contacts with tribal leaders - were considered objects of witchcraft and burned in the desert. Everything Laing had seen and experienced was lost.
Europe learned that the door to Timbuktu had been opened, but only for a few days. Two years later, the Frenchman René Caillié reached the city disguised as a native and returned to tell the tale, claiming the title of the first European to return alive from the city.
Caillié took the 10,000 francs reward from the Société de Géographie de Paris. France and Great Britain divided the Niger Basin. London took the lower part, and Paris took the upper part - mostly desert. From 1969 to 1989, the dictator of Mali and a great ally of France, Moussa Traoré, turned the salt mines of Taoudenni, where Laing was murdered, into forced labor camps for his former ministers and high-ranking officials, who were falling victim to the successive purges of the regime. Of the 140 graves in what was once the prison, only 12 are named. The memory of the others, like Laing's, is held by the desert.