Albrecht Roscher

He attended grammar school at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg and then went on to study geography, science and medicine at the University of Leipzig.

This achievement attracted the interest of eminent geographers such as Heinrich Barth, Alexander Humboldt, Carl Ritter and August Petermann.

[1] Roscher soon embarked on a multi-year scientific expedition to Africa, arriving in Zanzibar in 1858, where he conducted botanical investigations and learned Swahili.

In early 1859, he traveled down the coastline of what is now mainland Tanzania, exploring the waters around modern-day Dar es Salaam and charting the Rufiji delta.

He then joined an Arab slave caravan heading inland, arriving at Lake Malawi in October 1859, two months after the famed British explorer David Livingstone.