John Hanning Speke and the Source of the Nile
John Hanning Speke and Richard Burton where two of the greatest British African Explorers, and two of the most implacable rivals. The Somali attack at Berbera took place on the first expedition the two undertook together. Both were strong willed and ambitious men, both were soldiers and neither much relished defeat.
By the middle of the 19th Century, the last, unsolved geographic conundrum was the Source of the Nile. The source of the Blue Nile was reasonably easily traced to the Ethiopian Highlands, but the white Nile, its western branch, arose somewhere in tropical Africa. However, in the complex landscape of lakes and mountains that comprise east and central Africa, no one had any clear idea exactly where.
Between 1856 and 1859, Speke and Burton mounted a major expedition into east/central Africa to find these lakes, and with some luck mark the source of the White Nile. Why these two men chose to travel together it is hard to imagine, since they so passionately hated one another. Perhaps it was to keep an eye on the competition, but either way, they set off from Zanzibar in June 1857, and seemed to run a contest on who could suffer the most physical distress.
Burton was ill almost the entire time, suffering either from malaria or typhoid, sometimes both, and so he participated in very few of the ‘discoveries’. Speke, on the other hand, suffered some malady of the eyes, and was blind most of the time. He was led around on various expeditions by the guide, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who probably was responsible for most of what the expedition achieved.
What it did achieve was the ‘discovery’ of the two main Rift Valley lakes, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria, and while neither man was really able to do much to survey these lakes, an argument broke out between them regarding which was the source of the Nile. This argument carried over to their return to England, and became deeply acrimonious.
Speke made several more trips to the central lakes region, and although he could not categorically confirm that Lake Victoria was the source of the Nile, he maintained his position that it was. Burton, on the other hand, held strenuously to the position that Lake Tanganyika was the source of the Nile.
To settle the matter, the Royal Geographic Society scheduled a public debate between the two men, which became a highly anticipated event. Speke, however, suffered a fatal hunting accident when he shot himself while climbing over a stone wall, and died a few minutes later. It was September 15, 1864.
Burton retorted that Speke had shot himself rather than face his rival in open debate, although soon enough Speke would be proved right. Lake Victoria is generally regarded as the Source of the Nile.