BROWNE, WILLIAM GEORGE

born July 25, 1768, London, Eng. died June 1813, Iran British traveler in Central Africa and the Middle East and the first European to describe Darfur, a Muslim sultanate of Bilad as-Sudan, now part of The Sudan. Browne was forcibly detained in Darfur (179396) and published his account of the event in Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria (1799, enlarged ed. 1806). In 1812 he began a journey from England to the city of Samarkand, now in Uzbekistan, and was murdered by robbers on the road through Iran from Tabriz to Tehran.