Complex sentence: Following a stint in the military, von der Decken first travelled to eastern Africa in May 1860, where he explored the region around Lake Nyasa only a year after David Livingstone had been the first European to reach the area.
Split into simpler sentences: Following a stint in the military, von der Decken first travelled to eastern Africa in May 1860. There he explored the region around Lake Nyasa only a year after David Livingstone had been the first European to reach the area.