CAILLIE or CAILLE, RENE AUGUSTE French explorer, was born at Mauze, Poitou, on Sept. 19, 1799, the son of a baker. His first voyage, made at the age of 16, was to Senegal and Guadeloupe. In 1818 he went from Senegal to Bondu with supplies for a British expedition. In 1824 he was again in Senegal, determined to reach Timbuktu. He spent eight months with the Brakna Moors learning Arabic and being edu cated as a convert to Islam. Then, dressed as a Mohammedan, and giving out that he was an Arab from Egypt who wished to regain his country, he joined a Mandingo caravan going inland. Starting from Kakundi on the Rio Nunez on April 19, 1827, he travelled east along the hills of Futa Jallon, passing the head stream of the Senegal and crossing the Upper Niger at Kurussa. On reaching Time in the Kong highlands he was detained five months by illness. In Jan. 1828 he turned north-east and reached Jenne, whence he reached Timbuktu by water. After spending a fortnight (April 20-May 4) in Timbuktu he joined a caravan crossing the Sahara to Morocco, reaching Fez on Aug. 12. From Tangier he returned to France. Major Gordon Laing had reached Timbuktu in 1826, but was murdered on leaving it, and Caillie was the first to achieve the journey in safety, for which he received the prize offered by the Geographical Society of Paris. He received the Order of the Legion of Honour, and his Journal d'un voyage a Timbuktu et a Jenne dans l'A f rique Centrale (ed. by E. F. Jomard) was published at public expense in three volumes in 1830. Caillie died at Badere in 1838 of a malady contracted during his travels.