For one week, between the 14th and 20th June 1761, a German map-maker and mathematician, whom I consider a compatriot of mine since he lived for the last four decades of his life in the same town where I was born, got married and lived in for many years, was in Malta. His name was Carsten Niebuhr. I know the house which he built and lived in and I am familiar with the streets along which he strolled in my home town. Nowadays, from time to time, I also walk along the same paths he had walked before in Malta and I visit the same places he had seen here. Before writing about his stay in Malta though, (hopefully in the next issue of this Newsletter), I want to introduce you to this extraordinary gentleman.

The year was 1733, when Carsten Niebuhr, son of a farmer, was born in Lüdingworth, somewhere in the flat marshlands south of the estuary of the river Elbe, then part of the Electorate of Hannover within the German Empire. His mother died when he was just six weeks old and his father died soon after. The appointed guardian sold his father's farm and the inheritance was shared amongst all brothers and sisters. So it is no surprise that Carsten Niebuhr was destined to work as a farmer like his forefathers - but, without a farm of his own! Although he was eager and willing to learn, he did not have enough money to go to a highschool. Destiny wanted that a boundary dispute in the neighbourhood was settled through the intervention of a surveyor. The surveyor's activities and measuring instruments aroused Carsten's interest and there and then he decided to follow up the study of surveying at all costs. Finally, over twenty years of age, he met the requirements to enter for a mathematics course at the University of Göttingen.

King Frederick V, a great patron of culture and science, ruled at that time in Denmark. Head of Imperial State Office was the German, Baron von Bernstorff, who came up with the idea of an expedition to "Arabia Felix" (or the Happy Arabia as it was called in those days) with the aim of making the Old Testament more easy to understand through further knowledge of the country, its people, plants, animals, towns and villages. von Bernstorff happened to have very good contacts with the teaching staff at the University of Göttingen and so an expedition was set up composed of a philologist (von Haven), a botanist (Forskal), a doctor (Cramer), a draughtsman (Baurenfeind), a servant (Berggren) and a mathematician and surveyor - Carsten Niebuhr. In preparation for this task, Carsten studied astronomy and Arabic.

In February 1761, the explorers embarked on board the Danish warship the "Grönland" and sailed from Copenhagen, via Malta to Constantinople. From there, on board another ship, they left to Alexandria and Cairo via Rhodes. Always keeping a detailed diary about their route, Niebuhr reconnoitred and surveyed the Nile delta. His measurements and drawings were so detailed and exact, that a hundred years later, these were used in the building of the Suez Canal! Forskal discovered some 120 species of plants and collected seeds until then unknown in Europe. von Haven bought 72 manuscripts and Baurenfeind drew pictures of the way people lived, of their tools (mostly not yet familiar in Europe), their utensils and appliances, their traditional costumes and their musical instruments. Working in this manner - collecting, measuring and drawing, the expedition finally came to Yemen via Mecca. Although they had a good command of the language and were able to make themselves inconspicuous, the travellers had yet to overcome many obstacles. Against one of these, there was no help, not even with a generous dose of "baksheesh" - the malaria. In May 1763, von Haven died and in July he was followed by Forskal. To try and escape this mishap, and also to try and save the data, collections and maps and drawings amassed till then, the remaining members decided to leave the land. In search of a healthier climate, they left for India. However, it was too late - Baurenfeind and Berggren died on board during their voyage, while Cramer died in 1764 in Bombay. Carsten Niebuhr was henceforth left to work on his own steam. Although seriously ill for a long time with malaria himself, he still managed to send all the results of the ill-fated expedition to Copenhagen (via London). The task set by the King of Denmark was at least partially fulfilled.

Carsten Niebuhr stayed in Bombay for a year from where he left by ship to Basra in the Persian Gulf and then on land to Europe. But his thirst for knowledge was so overwhelming that he did not travel directly back home. He made it a point to go out of his way and to visit and to see, learn about and make detailed notes of any sites related to early history and civilisation. For three weeks, he lingered amongst the ruins of the King's palace in Persepolis, destroyed by Alexander the Great in 332BC. Painstakingly he copied in great detail the numerous inscriptions on the marble fragments he found on the site. Many years later, these notes led to the deciphering of the cuneiform script by Grotefend.

Continuing his journey, he passed through Baghdad, Mossul and Aleppo, staying for some time in Babylon and Ninive, pre-Christian places, until he reached the Mediterranean region again. He travelled like a man from the Orient - he dressed in their manner, he prepared and ate his meals in their ways and he slept on a carpet which he always carried with him. 

Occasionally he would be invited into a European owned residence. In Aleppo, he stayed with the Dutch Consul, who came from the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein and who was married to a woman from Hamburg, born in Ireland. His trading representative was a Frenchman, while his servants came from Armenia. All these people went about their daily routine speaking in French, English, Dutch and German - the servants spoke Turkish, Arabic or Italian, but for Carsten it was easy, he spoke and understood all these languages.

On instructions from the Danish Royal Court, Niebuhr then continued his travels to Cyprus with orders to copy the Phoenician inscriptions there. From there, he proceeded to Jerusalem in the company of some Franciscan monks who used to bring the annual alms from Malta to Jerusalem. Also here, Niebuhr described the town and its inhabitants in minute detail and he even made a map of the surrounding area. From Jerusalem, he ultimately started the return journey to Denmark via Damascus, Constantinopel, the European part of the Ottoman Empire, Poland and Germany, obviously not without recording his impressions about every town, village and special features he would come across. On the 20th November 1767, he arrived in Copenhagen. His journey had lasted almost seven years.

Upon his arrival, Carsten started to work on his notes and records and on those of Forskal. His "Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und anderen umliegenden Ländern" was published in several parts. Christian VII, who became King following the death of his father Frederick V, offered Niebuhr a well-paid and high-ranking position in Court in recognition of his self-sacrificing research. As a civil-servant, he lived and worked in Meldorf/Dithmarschen, a district town in the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, now north of the estuary of the River Elbe. He was a respected citizen with close contacts with many dignitaries of that time, such as Klopstock and Herder; he was a member of several societies of science even outside Germany. He declined his elevation to nobility on the grounds that "he who would do that would be considering his descent as not adequately honourable". In his innermost soul, he remained what he for ever was - an upright, proud and hard-working farmer. Carsten Niebuhr died in 1815.

The full account of his journey (1400 pages in the original version), is even today, 200 years later, a very exciting and interesting book. It is also an account with full relevance even for us. The way the people from that region treat each other, their never-ending peace negotiations, their periodic quarrels, their ways of thinking and doing business and their traditions - all these are recounted in Carsten Niebuhr's book. Which by the way, also contains his recollections of Malta, especially of the Grand Harbour area, of St Paul's Bay, of Rabat and of Mdina. Some aspects of life and of places on which he has written are nowadays forgotten and some of the descriptions outlined may today be interpreted differently, but his report on Malta, like after all the rest of his book, is well worth reading.
 

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