Riddles of travelers who disappeared without a trace

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

For every traveler who returned to his homeland to tell compatriots about his great discoveries, there are at least ten who have mysteriously disappeared into the jungle, deserts and glaciers.

Friedrich Leichhardt

The Prussian naturalist Friedrich Leichhardt arrived in Australia in 1842 after a long (and rather haphazard) study in Berlin, London, Paris, etc. Immediately upon arrival, he set out from Sydney to New South Wales to research flora, fauna and farming practices.

Then, in 1844, Leichhardt made his first big trip to the central regions of Australia, which began in Brisbane and ended in Port Essington (if you, like us, are not very versed in the geography of Australia, let us clarify that this is about 5000 km). During the campaign, the detachment was repeatedly attacked by warlike aborigines, Leichgardt himself caught malaria and once almost burned out, falling asleep by the fire (he was awakened by the smoke from a hat burning on his head). But after the campaign, he became a national hero, was awarded the medal of the Great Geographical Society in London.

In 1845, Leichhardt decided to cross Australia from west to east and embarked on a three-year journey from which he never returned. The last message was sent by the researcher a year after the start of the expedition.

It is assumed that all the participants in the campaign (there were seven of them: five Europeans and two aboriginal guides) died during a storm in the Great Sandy Desert. Since the expedition was supposed to be three years old, they worried about Leichgardt only in 1850, and went in search in 1852. But what happened was never found out for certain.

True, the Dale Carnegie expedition in 1896 found a tin matchbox and a saddle among the natives of the Great Sandy Desert, presumably belonging to Leichhardt. And in 1900, several guns were found in the desert, but not under a layer of sand, but under a layer of river silt. So, perhaps the cause of Leichgardt's death was the flood.

Gaspar and Miguel Corte Real

In 1503, the Portuguese courtier Vasco Corte Real equipped a ship in search of his brother Miguel Corte Real, who had gone in search of them a year earlier with Vasco's brother Gaspar. And he disappeared, trying to find a sea route across the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. King Manuel I, deciding that he had enough of the missing Corte Real brothers, banned Vasco from the expedition. What happened to Miguel and Gaspar remained a mystery.

Vasco, Miguel and Gaspar were the sons of the Portuguese nobleman João Corte Real, who, by the way, may have sailed to the shores of America even before Columbus, in 1470. Gaspar decided to repeat his father's expedition and in 1500 sailed on three ships to Newfoundland. The flotilla was caught in a storm and forced to split up. Two ships successfully returned home, and the one with Gaspar disappeared. In 1502, Miguel equipped three more ships and went in search of his brother. The ships decided to split up to cover as much territory as possible. Two ships returned home, and the one on which Miguel was sailing disappeared.

Modern researchers suggest that one or both of the Corte Real brothers passed through the Hudson Strait and were covered with ice near Labrador.

Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi

Genoese brothers-sailors, in 1291 set off on two galleys on a voyage with the goal of circling Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar and sailing to India. Both ships were missing. But there is information that they managed to swim to Morocco, since the son of Ugolino Sorleone Vivaldi went in search of his father in 1315 and heard about him already in Mogadishu.

True, it is not known whether this information can be considered true, since the Sorleone reported that the travelers lost their ships due to a storm, but ended up in the Kingdom of Presbyter John (a mythical state that was popular with enlightened Europeans in the Middle Ages).

Everett Ruess

A lone traveler who, since the age of 16, explored the uninhabited spaces of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Yosemite National Park. He contacted his family by sending rare postcards, and earned a living selling his landscapes.

Everett allegedly disappeared in 1934 (at least then the family noticed and began to worry). He was last seen in the Utah desert wandering alone with two donkeys. With the exception of Native Americans and local cowboys, Everett was virtually the first person to explore the area.

In 2009, a burial was discovered in the Utah desert. An elderly Navajo Indian stated that this was the grave of Everett Ruess, who was killed by two Indians who wanted to take his donkeys. Everett's remains were sent for DNA testing. But later a dental examination proved that it was not Everett, but some unknown Indian.

George Bass

Naval surgeon George Bass was one of the largest figures in Australian exploration. He swam 18 thousand kilometers, exploring the coast of the country, and his first travels made on a small boat, which he called Thumb Tom ("Boy-with-a-finger"), the size of a little tub. After Bass was allocated a normal ship, he went to the coast of Tasmania and proved that it was not a peninsula, as it was believed, but an island. As a result, the strait separating Tasmania from Australia was named the Brass Strait.

In 1803, Bass sailed by ship from Sydney to the shores of South America (presumably to illegally sell cargo there). Further, his fate is unknown, he either got into a storm and sank, or was taken prisoner and spent the rest of his life working in a silver mine in Peru.

Henry Hudson

The British navigator began his career as a cabin boy aboard a merchant ship. In 1607, a Moscow trading company hired him to search for the Northern Route to Asia. On the ship Howell, Hudson reached Greenland and mapped the coast. He returned back, not reaching the North Pole, only 1000 kilometers, but the next year he went to him again and again failed.

Then he was hired by the East India Trading Company and on the ship "Halve Maan" sailed to Novaya Zemlya. However, due to the dissatisfaction of the team, the Hudson had to change the original course: he crossed the Atlantic Ocean and in the process discovered the island of Manhattan (later New Amsterdam would be laid there, later renamed New York), climbed the Hudson River (named, by the way, after navigator). The Hudson never found the Northern Route, but did not give up trying.

In 1610, already under the auspices of the British East India Trading Company, he again set off in search of the Northern Route. Hudson explored the coasts of Iceland and Greenland and, having wintered in the ice, was going to continue the search, which was close to success. But the crew mutinied and dropped the Hudson himself, his seven-year-old son and seven sailors on a rowing boat with no food or water supplies.

Francis Moira Crozier

British Navy captain on six Arctic and Antarctic exploration expeditions. He began his career from the lowest positions on the ship, then rose to the rank of officer. In 1821, he asked for an expedition to find the northwest passage to Captain William Edward Parripo, where he gained experience of wintering on ice. Then he served on a ship off the coast of Portugal and in 1831 he went as a commander on the ship "Terror" as part of a research expedition to the shores of Antarctica. As a result of the expedition, the South Magnetic Pole was discovered, and Crozier was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1845, he again set sail for the shores of the Arctic to try to find the northwest passage. The expedition consisted of two ships: the flagship Erebus, led by John Franklin, and the Terror, by Francis Crozier. In 1847, John Franklin died (he was 62 years old - a respectable age for those times), and Crozier led the entire expedition. However, both ships disappeared, and nothing is known about the fate of their teams. John Franklin's wife, using her connections, equipped several rescue missions, but neither ships nor the remains of the crew were found.

By the way, Dan Simmons wrote the novel Terror about Crozier's campaign in 2007, in which he offered his own version of the death of the expedition (no, this is not a spoiler!). Be sure to read it, you will not regret it.