Eugène Mage
Eugène Abdon Mage (30 July 1837 – 19 December 1869) was a French naval officer and explorer of Africa. Mage published the first detailed description of the Toucouleur Empire created by El Hadj Umar Tall. Early life Abdon-Eugène Mage was born in Paris. His father, Abdon-Jean-René Mage, was head teacher of a private secondary school. His mother, Henriette Cattant, was born in Beauvais and came from a bourgeois family in northern France. At the age of 13 years Mage passed the entrance exam for the École Navale, the French Naval Academy based in Brest, France. Two years later, at the age of 15, he was assigned to the frigate La Forte and in December 1852 set sail for Callao in Peru, stopping at Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Horn and Valparaiso. Over the next two years he served on several ships, transporting troops and visiting Martinique and French Guiana. In the summer of 1855, during the Crimean War, he participated in the Anglo-French blockade of the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic. He then returned to Brest and in September 1855 at the age of 18 was promoted to the rank of sub-lieutenant. West Africa Mage lived as adjudicator of