Friedricli Gerstacker, a German traveller and novelist, born in Hamburg in May, 1816, died in Vienna, May 31, 1872. After a brief term in a commercial school he was apprenticed to a grocer in Cassel; but becoming dissatisfied, he ran away on foot to Bremen, and in the spring of 1837 engaged as cabin boy on board a vessel bound for New York. He led a wandering and adventurous life in the United States for several years, a part of which was spent as a hunter and trapper among the savages of the Indian territory. In 1842 he bought a hotel at Point Coupee, Louisiana; but this having proved a bad speculation, he returned in 1843 to Germany and engaged in literary pursuits, publishing Streifund Jagd-z'age durch die Yereinigten Staaten Norda-meriJcas (1844); Die Regulatoren in Arkansas (1846); Mississippibilder (1847); Die Flusspi-ratcn des Mississippi (1848); Amerikanische Wald- und Strombilder (1849); and several minor works and translations. In March, 1849, he set out on a journey around the world, during which he visited South America, California, the Hawaiian islands, Australia, and Java, and returned to Germany in 1852, making his residence at Leipsic. An account of this trip was published under the title of Rei-sen (5 vols., 1853-'4). During the succeeding four years he published a number of novels.

In 1860 he made an extensive tour through South America, visiting Ecuador, Peru, Chili, Uruguay, and Brazil, and returned home the following year. In 1862 he accompanied Duke Ernest of Gotha to Upper Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia, and in 1863 he visited the Central American states. He set out in 1867 on another journey around the world, visiting first the United States, Mexico, and South America. He went thence to the Pacific isles, and after an extended tour returned to Europe, and published a number of novels illustrative of the countries through which he had passed. Some of his later works are: Neue Reisen durch die Vereinigten Staaten, Mexico, Ecuador, West-indien und Venezuela (1868); Die Missionare (1868); Die Blauen und die Gelhen (1870); Buntes Treiben (1870); In Mexico (1871); Hamburger Nachrichten (1871); Herrn Mahl-huber^s Reiseabenteuer (1871). Several of his works have been translated into English.