Julio Cervera Baviera - Work in Africa

Work in Africa

He traveled to Morocco in 1877 and published a book called Geografía militar de Marruecos in 1884, and the Army commissioned him in 1884 to explore this area once more. He published Expedicion geografico-militar al interior y costas de Marruecos (1885). At the beginning of 1886, Cervera was working in the photoengraving industry in Barcelona. However, in the summer of 1886, under the sponsorship of the Spanish Society of Commercial Geography (Sociedad Española de Geografía Comercial), Cervera, the Arabic interpreter Felipe Rizzo (1823–1908), and biologist and meteorologist Francisco Quiroga Rodríguez (1853–1894) traversed the Spanish colony of Rio de Oro, part of Spanish Sahara, where they made topographical and astronomical observations in a land whose features were barely known at the time to geographers. They traversed the area between Cape Blanc and Cape Bojador, reaching Adrar after a journey of 900 km. It is considered the first scientific expedition in that part of the Sahara. They also signed the treaties of Idjil (near Atar) with the emir of Adrar and Saharawi chiefs.

In 1884, Cervera supervised the construction of a series of blockhouses around Melilla. Between 1888 and 1890, he served as Military attaché in the Embassy of Spain in Tangiers.