George Francis Lyon (1795-1832) was a rare combination of African and Arctic explorer. A 'pop star' of his day, he caught the public's Romantic imagination by battling against untrustworthy allies, callous slave owners, destitution, and disease in the desert, and by struggling against freezings, hunger, thirst, and over-exertion in the Polar region. The geographical detail in his journals helped to lay the path for other explorers and his genuine interest in the communities he visited, very unusual for the time, proved invaluable to later anthropologists. After serving on several ships, he...