Born January 16, 1820,
Gerlingen, Germany
Died October 4, 1876,
Kornthal, Germany

Johannes Rebmann, like a number of other famous explorers, arrived at his avocation through missionary work. Among other well-known missionary-explorers were David Livingstone, who made important discoveries in the lake system of central Africa, and Johann Ludwig Krapf (see separate entries), who paved the way for explorers of the Nile River. Rebmann, who worked in East Africa with Krapf, was the first European to see Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. At first geographers in Europe did not believe his report because, they said, a snow-capped mountain could not exist at the equator. Rebmann later became widely recognized for his knowledge of African geography.

Rebmann decided at an early age that he wanted to be a missionary. As a young man of 26, he went to Mombasa, a port on the east coast of Africa in what is...