Francis Garnier

Marie Joseph François Garnier (Vietnamese: Ngạc Nhi; 25 July 1839 – 21 December 1873) was a French officer, inspector of Indigenous Affairs of Cochinchina and explorer, eventually becoming mission leader of the Mekong Exploration Commission in 19th century Southeast Asia.

He was born on July 25, 1839 at Saint-Étienne, Loire, and entered the French Navy, and after voyaging in Brazilian waters and the Pacific, he obtained a post on the staff of Admiral Léonard Victor Charner, who from February 1860 to November 1861 was campaigning in Cochinchina.

After some time spent in France, Garnier returned to the East, and in 1862, he was appointed inspector of native affairs in Cochinchina, and entrusted with the administration of Cholon, a suburb of Saigon.

It was at his suggestion that the marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat determined to send a mission to explore the valley of the Mekong River, but as Garnier was not considered old enough to be put in command, the chief authority was entrusted to Captain Ernest Doudard de Lagrée. In the course of the expedition - to quote the words of Sir Roderick Murchison addressed to the youthful traveller when, in 1870, he was presented with the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London - "from Kratie in Cambodia to Shanghai 5392 miles were traversed, and of these, 3625 miles, chiefly of country unknown to European geography, were surveyed with care, and the positions fixed by astronomical observations, nearly the whole of the observations being taken by Garnier himself". A year earlier he received an award to be shared with David Livingstone at the 1869 Geographical Congress in Antwerp.

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