Alexandrine Pieternella Francoise Tinne was born in The Hague, Netherlands (Holland), on October 17, 1835. She was a Dutch explorer of northern Africa, but it was strange to have a female explorer going to different continents at that time. She wanted to map the White Nile in Sudan, Africa, as her goal. In 1861, she went on her first expedition on the Nile with her aunt and mother. She traveled to Gondokoro, Sudan, where she was supposed to meet the British explorer John Hanning Speke. However, he never showed and she went to find the Nile's source by herself. She went west near the Gazelle River (Bahr al-Ghazal) and the Sobat River, investigating near Lake Chad, especially the Nile Basin. Sadly, her mother and aunt and a few others died of fever during her expedition.
In 1863, Alexandrine made her expedition to the upper Nile again. She entered a region called the Azande near the northeastern basin of the Congo River. But, after this expedition, she lived in Cairo, Egypt, until 1867.
In 1869, Alexandrine picked up her African explorations again. She wanted to be the first woman to traverse the Sahara Desert. She was waiting for an Arab caravan to take her southward when she was sidetracked and decided to go with guides to see the Tuareg tribes and their nomadic tendencies. Near Ghat, Libya, on August 1, 1869, she was robbed and murdered by those Tuareg guides in the desert of Libya on route from Tripoli to Lake Chad. She had been about to visit those Tuareg tribesmen that killed her.
