Josef Menges and the Early Mapping of Somaliland

Josef Menges and German Exploration in the Horn of Africa

Following the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the coastal territories of the Horn of Africa became the focus of increasing interest by foreign powers, agencies, and individuals, who were attracted by the logistical, commercial, and geopolitical potential of these territories.¹ Josef Menges (1850–1910), a Hessian, was one of many German agents and adventurers who thrived there during the height of exploration and colonialism. Between 1884 and 1894, engaged in the lucrative trade in wild animals (Tierhandel) for European clients, he carried out explorations in the Kassala area (today part of the Republic of Eritrea) and in Somaliland (today Republic of Somaliland), which were, at the time, claimed by Egypt. With the help of the cartographers working in Gotha, Menges published six maps of little-charted territories of the Gash-Barka region of Eritrea and in the Sahel region of Somaliland. Menges was not alone in these cartographic endeavours. Indeed, before him, other explorers and scholars had produced valuable maps at the Perthes publishing house depicting parts of the Somali peninsula. These included Theodor von Heuglin’s 1860 map of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (collaborating with Bruno Hassenstein), Gustav Adolf Haggenmacher’s 1874 map of the Berbera hinterland (with August Petermann) and Philipp Paulitschke’s 1885 mapping of the route from Zayla to Harar (with Hassenstein and Carl Barich).

Menges’ Nachlass (personal effects) preserved at the Perthes-Forum in Gotha is an invaluable source that, if properly studied, allows us to grasp how, why, and with what goals these maps were produced. With the help of this little-studied archival material we can, so to speak, immerse ourselves into the mapmaking process that, more than 130 years ago, brought together a group of highly skilled cartographers in Gotha and young Europeans exploring uncharted territories in sub-Saharan Africa. The Nachlass contains Menges’ correspondence with the geographers from the Perthes publishing house, such as Hassenstein and Barich, his travel notebooks (Reisenotizbücher), as well as preparatory hand-drawn sketches that were used by the cartographers to produce the final maps.

The reasons that drew the Perthes publishing house’s attention to these regions seem all too obvious: the publication of maps of remote areas in Africa helped to fill gaps in geographic knowledge. In this way, the publishing house ensured that every new issue of its world-famous Mitteilungen provided original, never-before-published information on the African continent to its global readership. The goal was to reach the market with exploratory scoops that served to maintain the journal’s high reputation, keep its rivals in France, England, and Germany at bay, and to increase the prestige of the publishing house, which, during the period of the German Empire, acted as a sort of intelligence institute for overseas’ affairs.

In turn, a set of factors pushed a young adventurer like Menges to embark on these explorations. A mix of personal ambition, scientific zeal, and even nationalistic ardor played a role in many explorers’ biographies, and Menges was no exception. Indeed, in his correspondence with Gotha the Hessian expressed quite frankly the motivations steering his journeys in the Horn of Africa. Thus, in a letter dated 1875, he declared that his intention was to give his journeys a scientific purpose (Menges 1875):

I believe I can be useful there, as I only returned four weeks ago after almost two years sojourn in the regions of the White Nile and in Tigray and I am confident I have gained some experience there which I urgently wish to utilise for science.²

The lure of scientific glory loomed large in the mind of the animal trader. Moreover, presenting himself as an explorer and an expert on Africa might have appealed to potential Western clients interested in his African ‘exotica’.

Similarly, in another letter dated 1883 (Menges 1883), whilst acknowledging the modest scale of his journeys across the lowlands of Abyssinia (Gash and Mareb), he admitted that he wished to be regarded as the German to have “explored these lands first, before the Italians”:

I do not consider my two tours, which have crossed the area from Massawa to Galabat in the north of Abyssinia several times over the last nine years on hunting expeditions, as too important; I know quite well how insignificant they are in the broader field of African explorations, but I would like, if it seems worth the effort at all, to be, as a German, the one having explored these lands first, before the Italians.³

Exploring, Drawing Routenaufnahmen and Recording Peilungen

Yet, from our perspective as researchers benefiting from spectacular resources such as digital mapping and satellite imagery, it is the production process of these maps that appears more intriguing today. How did distant data, often recorded in hostile territory under adverse conditions and sometimes with little or no geographic equipment, manage to reach Germany and then be transposed into modern, state-of-the-art colour maps? Thanks to the notebooks and other material preserved in Gotha concerning Menges’ journeys in the Sahel of Somaliland, we are able to understand how this was possible.

During his sojourns in Somaliland, Menges carried out at least four major exploratory journeys that were mapped by Perthes. The first, from 6 to 22 January 1884, extended for about 150 km across the Sahel. The second, undertaken from 7 to 27 December 1884, covered about 163 km. The third, from 2 to 5 April 1889, to the coast north of Berbera, extended for about 119 km. The fourth and last one, carried out from 24 January to 12 March 1892, covered about 194 km. In total, Menges marched a distance of about 626 km, surveying an area of approximately 6,000 square kilometers.

If we focus on the January 1884 expedition to the Sahel, we can get an accurate picture of Menges’ working methods. He comes across, above all, as a methodical explorer. Besides his bookkeeping activities, which were necessary in order to keep track of his chief animal trading business, he meticulously kept notebooks where he recorded geography-related data obtained during his explorations. His method, which had probably been taught to him by his Perthes correspondents, was simple: to record as many Routenaufnahmen (itineraries) and Peilungen (bearings) as possible and to sketch small route maps with the help of a degree circle (for a slightly diverging method used by Emin Bey (Pascha) for his Perthes maps, see Demhardt 2006: 80).

In addition, the explorer equipped himself with minimal technical gear. It only comprised a watch, a thermometer, a compass, an aneroid barometer, and a degree circle. With these instruments, he took dozens of measurements daily. These included variables such as time (hour and minute, with V for Vormittag [morning] and N for Nachmittag [afternoon]), degrees relative to a degree circle oriented on a north-south axis, temperature, atmospheric pressure, and terrain and mountain features. Menges, however, did not have a sextant and was therefore unable to take precise latitude and longitude measurements. It can be assumed that the Perthes cartographers calculated the coordinates from a precise starting point (such as Berbera, Kassala, or Suakin) and then estimated the coordinates based on the sketch maps produced by Menges. These shortcomings account for the significant latitude errors in the published maps. Additional recorded data included information about ethnic distribution, vegetation, water wells, and architectural ruins.

Finally, Menges also produced detailed sketches. He regularly sketched the paths of his journeys, as well as mountain profiles, which were fundamental for the final map design. Further sketches, such as those of architectural features like old shrines and the written signs used by Somali nomadic groups for communication, could be of considerable interest to researchers.

The small maps drawn by Menges during his travels followed specific rules. They were drawn to scale, with 1 mm on the notebook corresponding to approximately 100 steps en route, meaning 1 cm equaled about 670 meters. Menges noted that slower progress, such as when crossing mountainous terrain, was reflected in his itineraries. These preliminary maps included the route, with precise notations of the hour and minute at every detour, the route’s degree relative to the north-south axis (as shown by the degree circle), and indications of key features. Menges used standard cartographic symbols, such as lines for routes and circles for elevations; he also introduced specific symbols to denote features such as monumental trees, forts, water wells, and ruins.

To gather information and determine his whereabouts, Menges relied heavily on the help of locals. In a letter dated 11 April 1883, addressed to the editors of Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, he stated:

Nor did I fail to ask the accompanying natives, who knew every detail about the land, in order to be able to write down the names of the various localities, so that I believe I have made as accurate a sketch as is at all possible of a hunting expedition that had no scientific purpose.⁴

Indeed, the assistance of locals was crucial and varied, ranging from logistical support to providing precise information on local features, names, and concepts. Unfortunately, Menges was rather succinct when writing about his local informants. An essential source of information for Menges were the abban, Somali agents or middlemen who arranged every detail for foreigners arriving at Somali ports. The abban were typically contracted at the harbors of Zayla and Berbera, becoming indispensable assistants when travelling across Somali territory. Companions en route and local groups likely provided additional information. Moreover, Abyssinians serving in different roles may have helped with cross-cultural communication. One of the few names mentioned in his correspondence is Gabra Sellase, a prominent animal hunter, likely of Tigrayan background, who lived among the Basen (i.e. Kunama) and whom Menges frequently encountered during his journeys in the Gash-Barka region. Another Abyssinian mentioned was Desta, who assisted Menges during his 1884 explorations in Somaliland.

It was on the basis of these notebooks that Menges produced larger, more comprehensive maps. He probably did this in Berbera or Aden, where he could count on better infrastructure and equipment. He used large graph paper (Millimeterpapier), measuring 29×22 cm, allowing him to draw large portions of the route, typically one folio for each day of the journey. These draft maps included most of the information from the notebooks, as well as land and terrain features, and a precise indication of the route at a scale of 1 mm = 100 steps. Similar to the smaller maps in the notebook, these maps did not contain precise geographic coordinates.

Producing the Printed Map

Menges would then send these larger maps, containing all the necessary legends, information, and symbols, to Gotha. Since the death of August Petermann in 1878, it was Bruno Hassenstein who had been responsible for the Africa maps at Perthes. By the mid-1880s, Petermann’s Meisterschüler (Demhardt 2006: 24, 29, 71) had already produced a series of excellent maps of parts of the Horn and the Nile regions, including those of the Bogos and Habab (1861), the Mareb, Barka, and Anseba (1865; discussed in Demhardt 2006: 49), Count Zichy’s expedition across the Danakil (1880), the Chor Barka region (1881), Rohlfs’ expedition to Abyssinia (1882), and Emin Pasha’s expedition to the Equatoria province in Sudan (1883). Hassenstein also became Perthes’ master in what Demhardt christened explorative Routenkartographie (itinerary cartography; Demhardt 2006: 71). Given his expertise, it was clear that the task of handling Menges’ latest material from the largely unknown territory of Somaliland fell to him.

The work of the cartographer had both scientific and artistic dimensions. On the one hand, in addition to interpreting the explorer’s detailed draft maps, he had to combine the maps drawn on several sheets of graph paper into a single image, framed against a geographical coordinate system and scaled to 1:300,000 (as in the 1884 map). While Hassenstein performed his task superbly, the resulting maps were, as noted earlier, inevitably inaccurate. For instance, the Golaj Mountains appear in the 1884 map at 9°43’ N and 45°23’ E, while in reality, they are 14 minutes north and 11 minutes west of that location (9°57’ N and 45°12’ E), which, even by the standards of the time, constituted a significant error. In fact, in the Somali map published ten years later, also by Menges and Hassenstein, the geographer avoided printing the coordinate grid. A justifying text printed on the map itself clarified: “Due to a lack of reliable latitude measurements south of Berbera, the grid is not shown”⁵ (Hassenstein 1894).

On the other hand, the cartographer had to give the final map the artistic touch for which the Perthes publishing house was world-famous. This included a harmonious use of typeface to accommodate a wide variety of legends, as well as adding texture, primarily by applying colours and shading to display mountainous terrain, and realistically drawing the wadis (chor), routes, paths, and caravans.

In spite of its obvious shortcomings, the 1884 map, just like the subsequent one released ten years later, together with the detailed written report served to illustrate and provide valuable information that travellers could use when preparing their own explorations. One could even see Menges as the pioneer paving the way for a series of elite tourists, from Ernst Karl Heinrich Hoyos-Sprinzenstein to Dimitrie Ghica-Comănești, who, in the subsequent decades, travelled to Somaliland in search of adventurous hunting expeditions. Accurate information such as that provided in these itinerary maps could indeed be crucial. We must not forget that between 1825 and 1897, the members of at least twelve major European expeditions were killed when trying to cross the Afar and Somali territories. Needless to say, maps such as this one served as the basis for producing better, more accurate maps of these regions; in fact, Menges and Hassenstein’s 1884 map amended Haggenmacher and Petermann’s largely inaccurate map published eight years earlier (Haggenmacher 1876). Moreover, these maps were widely circulated; they were frequently used as valuable gifts and exchanged between explorers, colonial agents, and elite tourists in a kind of market of geographic knowledge.

Last but not least, the products of exploratory cartography might have been useful to geopolitical players. We can assume that British colonial administrators in Aden made use of such maps to design their policies for the soon-to-be British protectorate in Somaliland. They might also have been of some practical use to the local populations themselves, who could have used them to learn new features about their own territories or to better assess the position of potential enemies. Finally, local colonial powers, chiefly Khedival Egypt (Menges began his African career in the service of the Khedive) and Menelik’s Ethiopia, might have been interested in this type of cartographic knowledge; it could have been a valuable resource in helping them design their own expansionist policies in these territories.

Related posts:

Sources

Haggenmacher, Gustav Adolf: Haggenmacher’s Reise im Somali-Lande 1874, in: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen Ergänzungsheft 47 (1876). Link ↗

Hassenstein, Bruno: Josef Menges’ Reisen auf das Hochplateau der Somali-Halbinsel im Januar 1884, in: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 30 (1884), pl. 15. Link ↗

Id.: Josef Menges’ Reisen auf das Hochplateau der Somali Halbinsel in den Jahren 1884 und 1892, in: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 40 (1894), pl. 16. Link ↗

Menges, Josef: Letter to Ernst Behm, 1875, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPA ARCH PGM 541a.

Id.: Letter to Anonymous (supposedly Ernst Behm), 11 April 1883, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPA ARCH PGM 541a.

Id.: Notebook of the journey to the Sahel region south of the port of Berbera, Somaliland, 1884, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPA ARCH PGM 541g.

References and further reading

Demhardt, Imre Josef: Der Erde ein Gesicht geben. Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen und die Anfänge der modernen Geographie, Gotha 2006.

Jung, Monika: Josef Menges. Forschungsreisender, Ethnologe, Naturforscher, Zoologe und Tierhändler, Limburg 2017.

1. This text emanates from a larger paper entitled “‘Die Östlichste Spitze Afrikas’: The Mapping of Somaliland by Josef Menges and the Gotha Cartographers” presented at the Workshop Mapping the Red Sea May 22–24 May 2024, Gotha, University of Erfurt, Centre for Transcultural Studies. I want to express my gratitude to the organizers as well as to the staff of the Perthes-Forum, Gotha Research Library. My research is part of the StateHorn project, INCIPIT-CSIC, Spain. ↩︎
2. “Ich glaube denselben nützlich sein zu können, da ich erst vor 4 Wochen nach beinahe zweijährigen Aufenthalt in den Gegenden des weißen Nil und in Tigre zurückgekehrt bin und mir zutraue dortin einige Erfahrungen gewonnen zu haben, welche ich dringend für die Wissenschaft zu verwerthen wünsche.” ↩︎
3. “Ich lege nun zwei meinen Touren, die im Verlaufe der letzten 9 Jahre auf Jagdzügen der Gegend von Massawa bis Galabat im Norden Abessinens mehrfach durchkreuzten, keine große Bedeutung bei, da ich recht wohl weiß wie geringfügig dieselben sich auf dem großen Gebiete afrikanischer Forschung ausnehmen, möchte mir aber doch, wenn es überhaupt der Mühe Werth erscheint, als Deutscher die Priorität der ersten Erforschung gegenüber den Italienern wähnen.” ↩︎
4. “Auch habe ich nicht versäumt die begleitenden Eingeborenen, die Handbreit jede Land kannten, auszufragen um die Namen der verschiedenen Lokalitäten zu notieren, so daß ich glaube eine so richtige Skizze fertig stellen zu können, wie es bei einem Jagdzuge, der ja keine wissenschaftliche Zwecke verfolgt, überhaupt möglich ist.” ↩︎
5. “Wegen Mangels an zuverlässigen Breitenbestimmungen südlich von Berbera ist das Gradnetz nicht ausgezogen.” ↩︎

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