Dr. Oscar Baumann

Oscar Baumann, the Austrian geographer, found Lakes Eyasi and Manyara during his 1890-1892 expedition and Hans Meyer from Leipzig, professor in what was by then called colonial geography reached the top of Kilimanjaro (Kibo) with his colleague Purtscheller in 1889.

First German, Dr. Baumann, to reach Serengeti in 1882, recorded first sightings of Lakes Eyasi, Manyara, and Ndutu. Took 23 days to cross Serengeti.

Only a small portion of this map, which accompanied Dr. O Baumann's book "Durch Masailand zur Nilquelle" is reproduced. This map is of value as being the first drawn from personal observation. For Baumann actually travelled through the country, instead of relying on second hand accounts for his map making.

Of particular interest is his proposed Railways, running from southern slopes of Mount Meru, past the northern tip of Lake Manyara, and then south of the southern edge of a misshaped Ngorongoro. The line then proceeds across the Serengeti, south of Duvai (Olduvai) and Lake Ndutu and thence to Lake Victoria. This railway project has been discussed from time to time in the ninety years since it was first mooted. It is fervently hoped that the present discusions will be equally prolonged, until the planners come to realize that such a project would not only be an ecological crime but an economic absurdity.

1892 Baumann visits Crater (March)

1899c. Siedentopf establishes himself in Crater

1908 Fourie visits Siedentopf

1913 Professor Reek's first visit

1916 Siedentopf departs (March)

1920 British mandate over Tanganyika

1921 Sir Charles Ross, Barns and Dugmore visit Crater: first Game Laws introduced

1922 Holmes' photographic expedition: Hurst living in Crater

1923 The Livermore safari

1926c Veterinary camp established at Lerai

1928 Crater declared Complete Reserve

1930 All Ngorongoro and Serengeti declared Closed Reserve

1932 First motor road to crater rim

1934 Author's first visit to Ngorongoro

1935 Building of first Lodge commenced

1940 East rim road to northern highlands: first National Parks legislation: unimplemented

1948 First National Parks Ordinance receives assent

1951 National Parks Ordinance comes into operation: boundaries of Serengeti gazetted (1 June)

1952 Park administration moves in (August)

1954 D-O. posted to Ngorongoro: cultivation prohibited by law: 'squatters' evicted

1956 Sessional Paper No. i publishes Government's proposals re Ngorongoro and the Serengeti

1957 Committee of Enquiry Report (October)

1958 Government Paper No. 5 announces Government's decision

1959 Conservation Area inaugurated (i July)

1961 Arusha Conference and Arusha Manifesto: author takes over as Chairman of Authority (September)

1963 Authority disbanded and Conservator appointed

1963 Catering first started at Lodge

1965 First Tanzanian Conservator appointed (September)

Baumann then [after March 18] climbed up the steep walls of the crater, and skirting Oldeani Mountain, made his way down the escarpment overlooking Lake Eyasi. He camped on a high ridge where he could look down from his tent and see its waters glittering in the sun - the first European to do so. Then, after visiting the lake, Baumann's safari continued by way of Lagaja [Lake Ndutu] in the Serengeti.

[Baumann, Dr. Oscar] first overseas traveller to leave a record of his journey through the area in 1892. He arrived in the Crater on 18 March, and subsequently travelled across the Serengeti. His account has been translated in Ngorongoro's First Visitor, No. 1 in the booklet series issued by the Conservation Unit.

At noon on the 18th March, 1892, we suddenly found ourselves on the rim of a sheer cliff, and looked down into the oblong bowl of Ngorongoro, the remains of an old crater. Its bottom was grassland, alive with a great number of game.

'We pushed on through the mountain woods, over a good even cattle track flanked on either side by thick walls of herbaceous vegetation. Starting at 9 am we passed through open grassland with marshy rills and with charming scattered groves.

At noon [on the 18th March, 1892] we suddenly found ourselves on the rim of a sheer cliff, and looked down into the oblong bowl of Ngorongoro, the remains of an old crater. Its bottom was grassland, alive with a great number of game; the western part was occupied by a samll lake. We went down the steep slope and started to pitch our tents at the foot of the precipice.

The abundance of game was really magnificent. Large herds of antelope roamed around and long maned gnus, light footed zebras and, singly or in pairs, the broad backs of rhinos. Although I am not a great Nimrod, during the day I shot one wilderbeest and three rhinos. From the neighbouring kraals, which appeared like dark circles in the grass, a crowd of thin Maasai women arrived, their heads shaved and their iron ornaments rattling: they had come to get meat.'

Oscar Baumann reported no trace of animals in the area presently covered by Lake Manyara National Park when he went through it in 1892

Oscar Baumann's book, Durch Masailand, gives a chilling picture of the destructions caused by the Rinderpest among the pastoral people. Baumann travelled through the territory in 1891 when the impact of the plague was in clear evidence.

From the old Masai settlement in the Ngorongoro Crater, Baumann wrote[in 1894]:

'Large numbers of the woeful creatures who now populate Masailand congregated around the thorn fence of our camp. There were skeleton like women with the madness of starvation in their sunken eyes, children looking more like frogs than human beings, "warriors" who could hardly crawl on all fours, and apathetic, languishing elders. ... They were refugees from the Serengeti, where the famine had depopulated entire districts, and came as beggars to their tribesmen at Mutyek who had barely enough to feed themselves. Swarms of vultures followed them from high, awaiting their certain victims. Such affliction was from now on daily before our eyes...'

The arrival of the sand-flea or jigger-flea (Sarcopsylla penetrans) in Africa has been dated to 1872, when the British ship Thomas Mitchell - in ballast from Rio de Janeiro - called at the Angolan port of Ambriz. From there the insect spread rapidly across the continent, aided by the caravan traffic which brought it from one trading station to the next.A quarter of a century after its first contact with African soil, Oscar Baumann (1898) could report that the sand-flea had arrived in Zanzibar, thus completing its transcontinental move.

The first European to set foot in the area was the German explorer and naturalist Dr. Oscar Baumann, who passed by as an agent of the German Anti-Slavery Committee on his way to Burundi. He was followed by his compatriots who built Fort Ikoma in the north which was used as an administrative centre until it fell to the British in 1917.