Ernst Marno was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n explorer in East Africa

East Africa

East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...

. He traveled extensively through the Blue Nile

Blue Nile

The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. With the White Nile, the river is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile...

 area and the Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

ese-Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

n borderland, as well as Kordofan and southern Sudan. His experiences were narrated in two books (Marno 1874, 1879). He offers information about the Nilo-Saharan populations of the area before the colonial occupation of Sudan by the British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

. He himself married a Dinka

Dinka

The Dinka is an ethnic group inhabiting the Bahr el Ghazal region of the Nile basin, Jonglei and parts of southern Kordufan and Upper Nile regions. They are mainly agro-pastoral people, relying on cattle herding at riverside camps in the dry season and growing millet and other varieties of grains ...

, who had converted to Catholicism. From 1878 on, he was based in Fashoda as an officer at the service of Egypt and later he was appointed governor of the Sudanese cities of Famaka and Fazogli

Fazogli

Fazogli , or Fazokl, was a district in colonial Egypt under British rule. It lay on the border of present day Sudan and Ethiopia, between the Blue Nile and the Sobat River, and included the mountains in the modern Asosa Zone of the Ethiopian Benishangul-Gumuz Region...

. During his stay in Sudan he met other European explorers, like Romolo Gessi

Romolo Gessi

Romolo Gessi , also called Gessi Pasha, was an Italian soldier and an explorer of north-east Africa, especially Sudan and the Nile River....

 and Juan Maria Schuver

Juan Maria Schuver

Juan Maria Schuver was a Dutch explorer who was a native of Amsterdam....

. He died in Khartoum of illness.

Writings

• Marno, E. (1874): Reisen im Gebiete des blauen und weissen Nil, im egyptischen Sudan und den angrenzenden Negerländern, in den Jahren 1869 bis 1873. Vienna: C. Gerold. The whole book is available at Google Books
• Marno, E. 1879. Reise in der egyptischen aequatorial-provinz und in Kordofan in den jahren 1874-1876. Vienna: A. Hölder. The whole book is available at Google Books

Sources

• A short bibliographical sketch in W. James, G. Baumann and D. Johnson (1996): Juan Maria Schuver's travels in North East Africa 1880-1883. Hakluyt Society, London, p. xcix.