[6] In 1881, he responded to a notice posted in the magazine Wanderer (Polish: Wedrowiec) [7] Stefan Szolc-Rogoziński a 20-year-old naval officer of the Russian Navy, looking for companions to accompany him on a planned trip.

The Polish expedition was organised to establish a geographical station in Ambas Bay, whose purpose was “to explore the Cameroon Mountains and to penetrate the interior in search of Lake Liba or Riba”.

[8] This first documented Polish research expedition to Africa took place between 1882 and 1885, and was conducted by Stefan Szolc-Rogozinski, Leopold Janikowski and Klemens Tomczek.

[10]: 8 After visiting Madeira, Liberia and Assini they entered on 16 April 1883 the port of Santa Isabel on the Spanish island Fernando Po in the Gulf of Guinea.

He met local Bubi people on Fernando Po, studied and later wrote about their habits, law and history and lived in the vicinity of the tribe.

[8] For example, the Polish expeditionary Janikowski (1887) [8] is described by Moreno in 2013 [15] as one who provided the most precise information on the political chiefdoms and on Bubi military organization at that moment.

[16] In the Scramble for Africa, against the German interest in Kamerun (Cameroon), the British were assisted by the two Polish nationals, Stefan Szolc Rogozinski and Leopold Janikowski, who signed more than thirty-five treaties with local leaders.

This resulted on 12 February in the German corvette Bismarck wounding and arresting Janikowski on the open sea, travelling by canoe from Batoki to Victoria, in the belief that they had got hold of Rogoziński.

[14] According to Rear-Admiral Knorr, the senior German officer in the area: "As M. Janikowski and his boat's crew were fired upon and their lives imperilled by a mistake, they are evidently entitled to demand a just and reasonable compensation.

His publications include: Fernando Po (Paris, 1886); Memories of Expedition of Szolca- Rogoziński to Cameroon in 1882; Seizure of Cameroon by the Germans (Morze, 1931); In the African Jungle, memories of the Polish expedition in Africa in the years 1882-1890 (Warsaw 1936) [1] Footnotes Bibliography Original Polish Text Related Websites: