One of the first foreign travelers to make significant use of photography in Northeast Africa was the French geographer Georges Révoil, who visited the region from 1877 to 1881 and took numerous pictures of the country and its inhabitants.
In 1877, Révoil set out on an expedition to Cap des Aromates (Cape of Spices). Other European explorers had briefly visited the region, but Révoil was the first to write extensively about his journey. His first visit to the region was for purely commercial reasons, but the purpose of his second visit was to study the country from a geographical and ethnographical perspective.
Voyage to the Dharoor Valley: People, Culture, and Customs
During his second visit to modern-day Puntland, he undertook an expedition with a particular focus on the nomads of the interior of the country who were renown for their courage and ferocity. Révoil focused his study on the Dharoor Valley (Dooxada Dharoor) specifically. The valley is an important grazing terrain for nomadic pastoralists in the region. Révoil also wrote a separate book on the flora and fauna of the country.
Below are photographs from Georges Révoil‘s La vallée du Darror: voyage aux pays Çomalis (Afrique orientale), published in 1882.
