The first German Hadji. Johann Gottfried Herder on Carsten Niebuhr. What began as a scientific endeavor to explore the southern part of the Arabian world for the six-member royal Danish Arabian expedition on January 4, 1761, soon turned into a fight for survival. After exhausting caravan journeys through the deserts of Arabia, depleted by a lack of provisions, plagued by robbers and diseases, and lured into a deadly trap by supposed friends, the few remaining members of the expedition attempt to make their way into the interior of Yemen. Six years later, the German cartographer and explorer Carsten Niebuhr returns to Copenhagen as the sole survivor of this adventurous undertaking and publishes his sensational research report there. This earned him numerous accolades, as Niebuhr made significant contributions.