A TIMBUKTU TRAGEDY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1036, 27 January 1911, Page 5

A TIMBUKTU TRAGEDY.

MAJOR LAING'S REMAINS FOUND. ■ By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Rec. January 26, 9.25 p.m.) London, January 2G. The remains of Major Gordon Laing, who was murdered by tho natives in 1826, have been discovered near' Timbuktu. Alexander Gordon Lain?, the African explorer, was born at Edinburgh in 1793, and was tho son of "a teacher of tho classics. His career as a traveller began in 1822, at which time he was an officer in the Yorkshire Light Infantry. He explored the River Niger, and ascertained that it was not connected with the Nile, as had been supposed. In 1825 he undertook another journey, under the patronage of Lord Bathurst to elucidato further questions concerned with this great river. From a letter sent to Consul Warrington at Tripoli it appeared that Major Laing had barely escaped with his life from ten attack in which he received twenty-four wounds. He managed to reach Timbuktu by August 18, but shortly afterwards fell a victim to the treachery of his servant. During the nineteenth century Timbuktu was reached by only four Europeans prior to 1881 when regular relations with the -French were opened up. The four were—Lang from Tripolitana (1826), Caillie from'tho North (1828), Barth from Central Sudan (1853), and Lenz from Morocco (1880).