A Cartographer in the Archives. Ernst Debes’ Manuscript Map of Eduard Rüppell’s Abyssinian Journey (1867)

Maps are made from maps. This can also be traced in August Petermann’s commentary for his latest map of Northern Abyssinia in 1867, published in Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen (PGM). The senior cartographer of the Perthes publishing house in Gotha stated that an entirely new map had been made from a journey undertaken by Eduard Rüppell to this very area 35 years earlier in order to support his cartographic endeavour:

„Alongside our map from 1864, […] we mainly used Dr. Eduard Rüppell’s excellent journey in 1832 for the map’s interior, based on astronomically measured points, which we constructed anew for this purpose[.]“¹ (Petermann 1867a: 433)

However, this itinerary map mentioned by Petermann, constructed by Perthes cartographer Ernst Debes² in September 1867, was never published but stayed in the publishing house archive as a manuscript map. The plain drawing with a quite mathematical air focusses exclusively on the red-inked route line. Information on its immediate surroundings is added with tiny annotations and coloured landscape hatching. The map’s materiality reveals it to be an auxiliary map, although the drawing is quite elaborate: The sheet was glued together from two pieces of rough paper and shows a bleached rim on two of its sides, indicating that it might have been laying in a pile of paper for some time, waiting for further use.

Petermann’s comment reminds us that 19^th-century mapping of Africa consisted of various steps, from the collection of data in situ, its transmission and processing at the cartographer’s desk to the final print (Demhardt 2000: 16–51, 229–235). In most cases, Perthes cartographers did not collect any data themselves, but received them from travellers to the regions who often fashioned themselves as explorers and scientists of Africa. The itinerary map by Debes shows how a travel report was transferred into visual media. Within the field of critical cartography, the process of mapping itself has received increasing scholarly attention, also tackling the actual process of map production in its technical as well as social aspects (Schelhaas/Wardenga 2007: 147–150). In this particular case, it is the aim to show how and why the unpublished itinerary map was made. This addresses the larger topic of how cartographers, situated in provincial spaces like Gotha, selected and used the data collected by travellers for maps depicting areas outside of Europe.

Translating Rüppell’s Data into a New Manuscript Map

In his construction process of the manuscript map, Debes followed a well-established cartographic tradition of route or itinerary mapping. Itineraries have a long history as a literary genre, providing lists of chronologically traversed places during a journey. Similarly as those listed places are perceived as important transition points of the journey according to literature studies, forming the framework for the travel, Debes’ map uses single places like joints between sometimes straight pieces of route line (Dym 2021: 3–22). Travel dates are added for each stop. Itinerary maps distinguish themselves further because topography is only indicated in the immediate vicinity of the route as it was in the traveller’s view and knowledge range (Surun 2006: 32f./id. 2017: 91). A recent explorative voyage that was presented to a larger public together with the new geographical “findings” of the traveller was a common reason to create and publish itinerary maps.

Not so in this case: Rüppell³ had travelled already in 1830–1833. He had started his journey in Egypt, progressing via the Red Sea to Jeddah and Massawa, to enter the area of Abyssinia – back then under the reign of several autonomous princes – in Halai at the rim of the highlands. His journey brought him to Ategerat, Takazzé, Simen and Gondar, from where he returned via Axum and Adowa to Massawa. Debes reconstructed the travel section from Halai to the south, travelled between May 10^th and June 23^rd 1832 (Rüppell 1838: 319–390). In 1838 and 1840 Rüppell published his travel report. It comprised a small overview map of Northeast Africa (35 × 24 cm), covering the whole journey, but with little detail. Rüppell also mentioned that because of political upheaval in the region of Adowa he had chosen the alternative yet more exhausting way to Gondar via Ategerat (Rüppell 1838: 319) – potentially a decision important for the cartographers.

As Rüppell’s travels took place way before August Petermann joined Perthes and started his journal PGM in the mid-1850s, Rüppell was never covered in one of its articles. Yet, the material of his travels to Africa did not remain unnoticed in Gotha.⁴ Petermann was well connected to Frankfurt and was in correspondence with the elderly Rüppell at least between 1860 and 1867, a time when mapping Abyssinia peaked at Perthes. As Rüppell repeatedly mentions, his whole cartographic data, including journal log and calculations, was publicly accessible at the city library of Frankfurt. Yet he patiently answered Petermann’s specific questions. Nevertheless, Rüppell only commented on Petermann’s new map after it was published and immediately pointed out some mistakes (Rüppell 1867: fol. 16). So, the cartographers apparently did not discuss the map with him personally beforehand, but simply worked with the written material.

The cartographic technique of converting measurements and descriptive text into visual media followed an abstracting scheme, as it was described already by Edme-François Jomard in 1830 (Surun 2017: 91–99). Indications on time and directions, surveyed by the traveller with clock and compass, were to be converted in distance and angles, while descriptions of shifting terrain had to be considered. Then the route line could be “fitted” between the few astronomically determined spots along the route, for which Rüppell was highly regarded. Debes’ hand-drawn map is the result of such a quite mathematical working process, still visible through auxiliary pencil grids and preliminary drawings.

Interestingly, the chapters of the printed travel report apparently also served as a major source for the itinerary map, as matching landscape descriptions were added to the map and some passages of the report were even quoted in whole, including page numbers. In the report, the detailed landscape descriptions are considered a strategy to convince the reader of the truth of the described, serving the common narrative of scientific faithfulness in the 19^th-century European discourse regarding the exploration of Africa (Fiedler 2005: 111/Keighren 2015: xi). This way, Debes goes beyond diligent mapping according to technical standards, but also includes additional content. In the end, he produced a very detailed itinerary map from archived material that could be used for adding details to a more complex map.

Demand in the Face of the British Invasion of Abyssinia 1867 – Debes’ Work as a Puzzle Piece for Petermann’s Map of Abyssinia

However, this does not yet make clear why Debes was apparently told to make a detailed itinerary map of this specific passage of Rüppell’s travel more than 30 years later. PGM appeared monthly and attended to their continuous readers by constant actualizations and continuing reports, including the latest political news and developments of importance in the field of geography (Schelhaas/Wardenga 2011: 96f.). During the mid-1860s, the political development in Abyssinia took on dramatic features for European observers. The new emperor Tewodros II had hoped to establish a cooperation with the British Empire, one major European power expanding its influence in the Red Sea region, but an affair over an unanswered letter to Queen Victoria ended in diplomatic conflict. Tewodros II first had an English diplomat arrested in 1864, and several more Europeans that stayed in Abyssinia followed as hostages while diplomatic attempts at a solution, observed with high public interest all over Europe, failed. Finally, on August 13^th 1867, the government in London announced a military expedition to free the hostages. Indeed, early in 1868, the British-Indian expedition led by Robert Napier reached Abyssinia and defeated Tewodros’ army at the mountain fort of Magdala, freeing the hostages and pillaging the village (Matthies 2010: 9, 23–28, 35–43).

Meanwhile, in 1867, the upcoming military expedition not only caused an intensified public discourse on Abyssinia. It also led to a significant increase of maps being produced of this area. Especially English cartographers hurried to create new maps of the highlands. They also directed their attention to older travel reports of northern Africa, like Rüppell, which received re-evaluation. Thus, Rüppell’s whole journey route of 1830–1833 was mapped in a brand-new map with seven sheets (scale approx. 1:316,800) by the English War Office (Petermann 1867a: 432).⁵ So, Debes was not the only one reworking Rüppell’s travel for new map material during this time. His itinerary map contains far more details, though; especially regarding terrain and vegetation, which he drew from the travel report.

Petermann also published two new maps of the Abyssinian region in PGM in November 1867, one featuring the sloping area between Massaua and Halai (pl. 14, scale 1:300,000), based on the latest topographic information by Werner Munzinger, and the other focusing on the northern highlands of Abyssinia, titled Specialkarte von Nord-Abessinien (pl. 15, scale 1:1,000,000). The added comment leaves no doubt that the maps were a direct reaction to the planned British military expedition and the cartographers apparently rushed to publish them before the troops reached Abyssinia (Petermann 1867a: 432). Given the normal preparation time of such maps, Petermann as well as Debes must have worked under immense time pressure to create their maps in this short time frame.

The Specialkarte von Nord-Abessinien directly referred to the current events: A side map giving an overview to the topography of whole Abyssinia included, in red ink, the potential route of the advancing English troops from the coast towards Magdala (“Wahrscheinlicher Weg der Englischen Invasionsarmee”). The main map, a complex map in relatively small scale, shows the northern Abyssinian highlands until the Red Sea coast. In the tangle of rivers and mountain ranges the mapmaker also referred to several routes of European travellers. Rüppell’s route can be found in the map, too, coinciding with the section mapped by Debes, but only at second glance. It is not prominent at all and there is also no map legend explaining whose routes were depicted. Thus, Debes’ effortful preparatory map for the area blends into the larger map so seamlessly; Petermann’s written comment is almost the only testimony for its use. In direct comparison, some features of transferring hand-drawn into printed maps become evident: Where Debes only hinted at inner-Abyssinian borders crossing the route with light red pencil, for example, the printed map depicts strong accentuated borderlines, not indicating any uncertainty.

Petermann had already published several maps of Abyssinia, especially those featuring the results of an expedition aimed for Central Africa led by Theodor von Heuglin, published in 1864. A working map preserved from the production process of the Specialkarte shows how the knowledge about the region accumulated in previous maps was reused within the publishing house. Parts of other maps were apparently copied, or snippets even cut out and glued to the sketch map. Parts with new information were left out and supplemented by hand. Several route lines from the earlier maps, each a unique combination of dots and lines, were also copied into the newer map. Rüppell’s route, however, had to be done entirely anew – at least a new line code for him was noted at the side.

Cartographers’ Choice: Data Selection, Data Preparation, and Data Recycling

All in all, Rüppell’s route and the map data connected with it, as constructed in Debes’ itinerary map, are only a tiny part of the whole Specialkarte, one puzzle piece prepared with great diligence. It can only give a hint of how many sources and how much work by different cartographers went into one map like Petermann’s Specialkarte von Nord-Abessinien. In fact, several unpublished itinerary maps like the one by Debes are preserved in the Perthes collection, preparing the data provided by travellers for further use in more complex maps. As such, the preceding section of Rüppell’s travel route from Massawa to Halai had been mapped in 1861 by Bruno Hassenstein, apparently in preparation of Petermann’s Der nördlichste Theil von Abessinien und die Landschaften der Bogos und Habab (1861). This shows clearly that a map at Perthes was not only made by one cartographer or based on one traveller’s data but included the work of a whole network of actors not mentioned as authors in the final map.

Reasons for Petermann to give at least an extra mention for Rüppell’s reconstructed itinerary in the map commentary of 1867 might have been due to the concurrent attention for the English map of his journey. But there were more reasons the Perthes cartographers drew back on Rüppell’s 35-years-old travel report: First, due to the diplomatic conflict, new data from Abyssinia was a complicated issue in 1867, as European travellers were apparently not welcome. Looking back to older material appears logical, especially as Rüppell’s astronomic observations were highly estimated and still valuable, as it was the cartographers’ interest to create a net of routes and fixed points as dense as possible for their topographic maps of northern Africa. The diligent itinerary map of Rüppell’s route could be added to this imaginary network.

Second, Rüppell’s decision to travel south via Ategerat instead of Adowa led him along a route that happened to be a section of the possible path of the English troops, at least according to Petermann’s latest knowledge in November 1867 (Petermann 1867a: 433). Despite the British invasion route being slightly different in the end – again published by Petermann with updated map material in 1868 – the Gotha cartographers could display at this moment of public interest that they already had considerable knowledge about the route in question by reworking Rüppell’s material. Thus, Debes’ itinerary map and its further use for Petermann’s Specialkarte provides an example that mapping Africa at Perthes in the 1860s was not only supported by European research expeditions done in these very days, but also included much older material and travel reports.

Sources

Debes, Ernst: Dr. Eduard Rüppells Reise in Abyssinien in den Jahren 1831–1833, Gotha 1867, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPK 40.20.B B(01).

Petermann, August: Der nördlichste Theil von Abessinien und die Landschaften der Bogos und Habab, in: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 7 (1861), pl. 11.

Id.: Die neuesten Aufnahmen und Karten von Abessinien, in: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 13 (1867a), p. 432f.

Id.: Specialkarte von Nord-Abessinien, Gotha 1867, in: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 13 (1867b), pl. 15.

Id.: No. 2, Gotha 1867c, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPK 40.20.B A (01).

Id.: Die ersten Aufnahmen der englischen Armee in Abessinien, November–Januar 1867–1868, Nach offiziellen Mittheilungen. Nebest Übersicht des voraussichtlichen Kriegsschauplatzes bis Magdala, in: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 14 (1868), pl. 6.

Rüppell, Eduard: Reise in Abyssinien, 2 vols., Frankfurt 1838/1840.

Id.: Letter to August Petermann, Frankfurt 15.06.1866, SPA ARCH PGM 185, fol. 12–14.

Id.: Letter to August Petermann, Frankfurt 26.11.1867, SPA ARCH PGM 185, fol. 16–17.

War Office: Rüppell, 7 sheets, London 1867, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPK 40.20.B A (01).

Gebiet zwischen Suakin, Massaua, Chartum und Sobat: Handzeichnungen: Kartensammlung, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPK 40.19.02 A (02).

Literature

Anonymous: Art. Debes, Ernst, in: Meyer’s Konversations-Lexikon 1906, URL: http://www.zeno.org/Meyers-1905/A/Debes?hl=ernst+debes (Accessed: 10.07.2024).

Demhardt, Imre Josef: Die Entschleierung Afrikas. Deutsche Kartenbeiträge von August Petermann bis zum Kolonialkartographischen Institut, Gotha/Stuttgart 2000.

Dym, Jordana: Mapping Travel. The Origins and Conventions of Western Journey Maps, Leiden/Boston 2021.

Fiedler, Matthias: Zwischen Abenteuer, Wissenschaft und Kolonialismus. Der deutsche Afrikadiskurs im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, Köln/Weimar/Wien 2005.

Keighren, Innes M., Charles W. J. Withers, Bill Bell: Travels into Print. Exploration, Writing, and Publishing with John Murray, 1773–1859, Chicago/London 2015.

Matthies, Volker: Unternehmen Magdala. Strafexpedition in Äthiopien, Berlin 2010.

Runge, Jürgen: Afrikaforschung in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts – Universalgelehrte erkunden Ägypten, Nubien, Abessinien und Innerafrika. Eduard Rüppell (1794–1884) und Theodor von Heuglin (1824–1876), zwei Persönlichkeiten und zwei Schicksale, in: id. (ed.): Arktis bis Afrika. 150 Jahre wissenschaftliche Geographie in Deutschland, Frankfurt 2015, pp. 105–125.

Schelhaas, Bruno, Ute Wardenga: „Die Hauptresultate der Reisen vor die Augen zu bringen“ – oder: Wie man Welt mittels Karten sichtbar macht, in: Christian Berndt, Robert Pütz (eds.): Kulturelle Geographien. Zur Beschäftigung mit Raum und Ort nach dem Cultural Turn, Bielefeld 2007, pp. 143–166.

Eid.: „Inzwischen spricht die Karte für sich selbst“. Transformationen von Wissen im Prozess der Kartenproduktion, in: Steffen Siegel, Petra Weigel (eds.): Die Werkstatt des Kartographen. Materialien und Praktiken visueller Welterzeugung, München 2011, pp. 89–107.

Surun, Isabelle: Le carnet de route, archive de voyage, in: Revue de la Bibliothèque National de France 22 (2006), pp. 31–38.

Ead.: La carte itinéraire. Un bricolage savant, in: Jean-Marc Besse, Gilles A. Tiberghien (eds.): Opérations cartographiques, Paris 2017.

1. “Für das Innere benutzten wir ausser unserer Karte von 1864 […] ganz hauptsächlich die ausgezeichnete, auf astronomischen Fixpunkten beruhende Reise Dr. Eduard Rüppell’s im Jahre 1832, die wir zu dem Behufe neu construierten[.]” [↩]
2. Ernst Debes (1840–1923) entered the Perthes cartographic institute as an apprentice in 1858, becoming a student of August Petermann. Later, in 1872, he went to Leipzig building up his own enterprise “Wagner & Debes” specializing in physical maps and school atlases among others (Meyer’s Konversations-Lexikon 1906). [↩]
3. Eduard Rüppell (1794–1884) was the son of a banker in Frankfurt and travelled to Northeast Africa twice in 1822–1827 and 1830–1833 in order to do scientific research. Beside carefully executed astronomical measurements, he collected a myriad of specimens he later mostly left to the hands of the Senckenberg Society Frankfurt, ensuring him high renown in the German scientific community with interest in Africa (Runge 2015: 109–116). Especially his travels to Abyssinia in 1830–1833 were widely noted. [↩]
4. Several published maps and a copy of the travel report have been preserved in the publishing house archive. Rüppell had also been connected to Gotha during the time of his travels through Franz Xaver von Zach, Gotha astronomer and editor of several geographical and astronomical journals in the first half of the 19^th century. Zach trained Rüppell in handling astronomical instruments and also published on his travels in the Correnspondence Astronomique (Rüppell 1866: fol. 12v). [↩]
5. According to Petermann, the cartographic department of the English War Office copied many original maps, like the ones of Ferret and Galinier, during those months, but decided to create an entirely new map of Rüppell’s journey as no proper map of it had been available yet (Petermann 1867a: 432). A review sample reached Perthes and Petermann on September 17^th, 1867; as Debes’ map is dated “September 1867”, it cannot be decided finally if the sample arrived there before or after his itinerary map was finalized – but Petermann surely used both for further mapping. [↩]

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