It's an amazing story of exploration, near-death experiences, and the most almighty feud.
In part one of our mini-series on The Quest To Find The Origin of the River Nile, we'll be telling the story of the first major expedition by British explorers, Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is the start of a mini-series all about The Quest To Find The Origin of The River Nile.
[00:00:28] This was originally going to be a standalone episode, a single one, but there is so much to this story that we’ve split it into three parts.
[00:00:38] In this episode, part one, we’ll set the scene and tell the story of the first major expedition by a pair of British explorers, Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke. This is an absolutely amazing story of rivalry, exploration, near death experiences and the most almighty feud.
[00:00:59] Then in part two, which is going to be one of our member-only ones, we’ll learn about Dr David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer who disappeared off the face of the Earth, and it was only a plucky young Welshman who was brave enough to try to find him.
[00:01:15] And in the final episode, part three, we’ll learn about Henry Morton Stanley, the man who provided a definitive answer to the question and is perhaps the greatest explorer of the 19th century, or of all time, but a man whose legacy is debated to this very day.
[00:01:33] OK then, The Quest To Find The Origin of The River Nile.
[00:01:38] The quote “geography is destiny” is often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.
[00:01:47] He found this out the hard way in 1812, after experiencing the Russian winter and losing a reported 300,000 men in the process.
[00:01:58] But 14 years prior to this, Napoleon had invaded another country for which “geography is destiny” is even more applicable: Egypt.
[00:02:11] Egypt is one large desert. To be precise, 96% of the country is desert, dry sand and rocks, inhospitable terrain for all but the hardiest.
[00:02:22] But a small part of the country contains lush pastures, arable land, capable of producing grain, fruits and vegetables, and even cotton, a notoriously water-intensive plant.
[00:02:37] This was only made possible by The Nile, the vast river that flows through the country and provides the country with not just enough water to sustain its population, but would also flood every year and cover the nearby pastures with nutrient rich soil.
[00:02:56] So, understandably, the source of this water was of interest not just to the Ancient Egyptians, but anyone who set foot in the country.
[00:03:06] The Ancient Egyptians attributed the annual floods to the gods, believing that it must be some divine being that caused so much water to flow down, literally providing life for the people.
[00:03:20] Numerous Roman leaders, from Julius Caesar to Nero, sent expeditions to try to find where all this water was coming from, but they never managed to make much progress.
[00:03:33] You might think that finding the source of a river is relatively simple. You start at the mouth, where the river meets the sea, and just keep on sailing up the river until you find your answer.
[00:03:46] Unfortunately, in the case of The Nile, it isn’t quite that simple.
[00:03:52] Firstly, in modern South Sudan, around 2,500 kilometres south from where the Nile meets the Mediterranean, the Nile passes through a vast swamp called the Sudd. It is more than 50,000 kilometres squared, impenetrable to all but the smallest of boats, and anyone who got there was forced to turn around and return back downstream with the current.
[00:04:20] And on the subject of currents, the currents in the river Nile can be very strong, so especially in an era when boats would be reliant on man or wind power, in many parts the current was too strong, a boat simply couldn’t pass.
[00:04:37] You might think, ok, well if that’s the case then you can lift the boat out of the water and carry it around until the current is less strong.
[00:04:46] That is possible in some parts of The Nile, the part in modern-day Egypt for example, but let’s remember that The Nile is the longest river in the world.
[00:04:57] Well, in fact, there are some Brazilian researchers who are now saying that The Amazon is longer, but the point remains that The Nile is vast.
[00:05:06] It’s over 6,600 km long. If you imagine a river that went all the way from London to India, The Nile would still be longer.
[00:05:20] So you can certainly imagine how an expedition to try to find the source of The Nile, the “end” of the river, would require some serious preparation.
[00:05:30] Now, let me give you a little bit of a spoiler here, and tell you that The Nile has two sources, two origins: The Blue Nile and The White Nile.
[00:05:43] Roughly halfway up The Nile, in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum the river splits in two. The so-called Blue Nile goes to the East, and originates in Lake Tana in Ethiopia, while The White Nile continues south and originates, well, that was the mystery and that’s what we’ll talk about today.
[00:06:04] See, The Blue Nile was the tributary that brought the flood water every year, and its source was discovered relatively early, potentially as early as 1618 by a Spanish missionary, and certainly by a Scottish explorer in 1770.
[00:06:24] It turned out that the Blue Nile came from this large lake, which was full to the brim during the rainy season.
[00:06:32] The White Nile, however, was more mysterious.
[00:06:36] Its waters flowed all year round, but nobody knew for sure where it started.
[00:06:43] There were various theories, but these were all they were: theories.
[00:06:48] The prevailing theory about where it came from actually dates back all the way to Ptolemy, the 2nd century mathematician.
[00:06:58] Ptolemy had heard from a travelling merchant that the source of the water for the Nile was a group of large snow-capped mountains which he called the “mountains of the moon”.
[00:07:11] For almost two thousand years, it was believed by Europeans that there was a huge range of mountains that went through the middle of Africa, and it was the melting ice from these mountains that supplied the water for the continent’s largest river.
[00:07:28] See, European map makers had a relatively good understanding of the geography of the coast of Africa, but had very limited knowledge of the terrain inside this vast continent.
[00:07:41] It was a mystery, so for centuries Ptolemy’s version of these “mountains of the moon” was taken as gospel, and you can find maps of Africa even as late as 1813 with a huge mountain range that cuts through it.
[00:08:00] But, as European explorers started to travel further into Africa, there was no sign of this huge mountain range.
[00:08:10] If this huge mountain range didn’t exist–which of course it doesn’t–the source of the Nile must be elsewhere.
[00:08:19] And, as you may know, in the 19th century there was a growing interest in all things Ancient Egyptian, after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, as well as a general European imperialist notion of exploring the world and claiming territory.
[00:08:36] So, it was only natural, you could say, that with this came a renewed desire to answer the question of the true source of The White Nile once and for all.
[00:08:48] And it's here that I must introduce you to the protagonist of today’s episode, or at least one of the two lead characters.
[00:08:57] He was an Englishman called Richard Francis Burton.
[00:09:01] He had already made a name for himself for managing to travel to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, at a time when non-Muslims were not allowed, and if caught, would be executed.
[00:09:13] He was also a linguist, reportedly fluent in Arabic as well as 24 other languages and 12 dialects.
[00:09:21] In 1854, he was chosen by the British Royal Geographical Society to lead a mission to the “Lake regions of Central Africa”, where he would look for the origins of The White Nile.
[00:09:36] Given the many difficulties of travelling up The Nile by boat, from the strong currents to the swamps, rocky waters and waterfalls, Burton decided to land in Aden, in Somaliland and head west through Ethiopia.
[00:09:52] By this time, it was hypothesised that the source of the White Nile was probably a huge lake of some sort, so the mission was to go west into Africa, find a huge lake, then go all the way around the lake to see if there were large rivers flowing out of it that would lead to the Nile.
[00:10:12] Described like that it sounds almost easy, but as you’ll see, it most certainly wasn’t.
[00:10:21] When Burton arrived in Africa, he was joined by another Englishman by the name of John Hanning Speke.
[00:10:29] And, little did the pair know it, but this would be the start of one of 19th century exploration’s greatest rivalries and feuds.
[00:10:40] See, Burton and Speke were both Victorian explorers, united by an imperial mission, but they couldn’t have been more different.
[00:10:50] Burton was English, but he was treated as a foreigner in his own country.
[00:10:56] He had dark skin and a large bushy moustache, he looked more like an Arab than a 19th century Englishman. I mean, he had even managed to travel to the heart of Islam, Mecca, without anyone thinking he was anything other than a devout Muslim pilgrim, so that gives you an idea of his appearance.
[00:11:17] He was also a deeply cultured man, seeking knowledge for knowledge’s sake, or at least that is how he is remembered by some historians.
[00:11:27] Speke was an entirely different individual. He was more in the style of the classic imperial Victorian explorer. He was a light-haired aristocrat with a large country house in England.
[00:11:40] He had served in the British Army in India, and had travelled to Mount Everest and Nepal, so he was well-used to harsh conditions.
[00:11:50] He wanted to make a name for himself as an explorer, he wanted to take trinkets back to his family home in England, and so he had volunteered to join Burton on his African expedition.
[00:12:02] And to underline, the mission was Burton’s, he was the leader, but this was something that Speke would never fully accept. Speke considered himself to be Burton’s equal, and did not like the idea of being “second in command”.
[00:12:19] So, this gives you some idea of the characters of the pair.
[00:12:23] And of course, these two were far from alone.
[00:12:28] When they arrived in Africa, they hired as many local men as they could, literally hundreds of people to carry their belongings, cook for them, protect them, and guide them.
[00:12:39] And when I say “carry their belongings”, I mean it in the literal sense. A fly called the tsetse fly carried a disease that would kill horses and cows, so these explorers needed to hire humans to carry all of their possessions for them.
[00:12:58] As you can imagine, an expedition like this was an incredibly expensive affair.
[00:13:04] Now, the expedition didn’t get off to a great start when its camp was attacked by a group of Somali warriors, killing one of the explorers and leaving Burton with a spear that literally went through one cheek and out of the other.
[00:13:19] Speke was caught, tied up and stabbed 11 times with a spear before managing to escape.
[00:13:26] And a third member was killed.
[00:13:30] Burton was forced to abandon the mission, but in 1857, just a few years later, he would be back again.
[00:13:39] This time, Burton understandably opted to avoid Somaliland, instead landing further south in Zanzibar, and then heading inland. In case you need a reminder, Zanzibar is an island off the east coast of Africa, in modern day Tanzania.
[00:13:58] Once on the mainland, the group followed paths that had been used for centuries by Arab traders, but the journey was not exactly simple.
[00:14:07] Both Burton and Speke got malaria and were struck by other tropical diseases, and were carried for large parts of the journey.
[00:14:17] On February 13th of 1858, 253 days after having set off, they set eyes on the most amazing body of water.
[00:14:28] Lake Tanganyika, the second largest lake in Africa, and one that stretches almost 700 kilometres from top to bottom.
[00:14:37] Burton was amazed, believing that this huge body of water must be the source of the Nile.
[00:14:45] Speke, on the other hand, didn’t see anything.
[00:14:49] He had been temporarily blinded by a tropical disease, so he had to take Burton’s word for it, he had to accept what he said.
[00:14:58] In fact, Speke wasn’t just temporarily blind, he was deaf as well, after a particularly gruesome incident that isn’t directly relevant to our story, but does give you some sense of what these men were going through.
[00:15:13] One evening, there was a huge storm and Speke’s tent was blown away. He tried to light a candle to see what was going on, but when he lit the candle, he was attacked by a swarm of beetles. There seemed to be nothing he could do to get them away, so he lay down and tried to get to sleep.
[00:15:35] As he was sleeping, a beetle crawled into his ear. Not just around his ear, but properly into his ear canal, and it was burrowing deeper and deeper, digging at his ear drum. Speke did everything he could to try to get it out. Shaking and scratching, and he even melted butter, but it was all to no avail.
[00:16:00] Eventually, he was so desperate that he got his knife and thrust it into his ear. He managed to kill the beetle, but it made him go deaf in the process.
[00:16:11] And apparently for months afterwards, he continued to find little pieces of beetle coming out of his ear.
[00:16:19] Disgusting, I know.
[00:16:21] Now, by the time they had arrived at Lake Tanganyika, Burton was so ill that he was content enough to accept that this was the source of the Nile.
[00:16:32] After all, it looked like a big lake, it was roughly in the right place, and the men had gone through hell, had almost died multiple times, and Burton probably felt like he was going to die any day.
[00:16:46] It’s hardly surprising that he was happy to say “ok, that’s good enough for me, let’s head home”.
[00:16:53] Speke, on the other hand, wanted to keep going. Yes, it was a big lake, but this wasn’t proof that it was the source of the Nile.
[00:17:03] The pair split, with Burton staying put and Speke continuing north until he reached an even bigger lake a few hundred kilometres to the north east, Lake Nyanza.
[00:17:15] Speke, in the imperialist tradition, decided to give it a completely different name, declaring that it was to be called Lake Victoria, after the British queen at the time.
[00:17:27] And as a reminder of where we are in Africa, Lake Victoria is just over 700 kilometres inland from the east coast of Africa. Most of it is split between modern day Tanzania and Uganda, but there’s a little slither in Kenya as well.
[00:17:45] Now, by the time Speke had got to Lake Victoria, he was a wreck, as was his group.
[00:17:52] His vision was almost gone, the mapping equipment they had brought had been lost or stolen, they had barely anything left.
[00:18:01] They also didn’t have the right boats to properly explore the lake, so they couldn’t go around it to properly map it and see if it really did lead to the Nile.
[00:18:12] One thing that Speke was able to do, however, was boil water.
[00:18:18] He noticed that it took longer to boil water here than at Lake Tanganyika, which meant that it must be higher in altitude. And if it was higher and further north, it was more likely to be the ultimate source of The Nile.
[00:18:35] Speke returned to Burton, declaring that he had discovered the source of The Nile.
[00:18:43] Burton said something along the lines of “ok, certainly could be”, but insisted that they needed more proof. What Speke had found was interesting, but not conclusive, according to Burton.
[00:18:57] Speke was deeply offended that Burton hadn’t accepted his conclusion, there was a huge argument. The feud was so great, in fact, that the two men travelled in separate ships back to the UK.
[00:19:12] Speke, it would turn out, rushed back to London so that he could present his findings to the Royal Geographical Society before Burton, claiming the glory of “discovering” the origin of The Nile for himself.
[00:19:28] And it worked, or at least his findings were accepted by the Royal Geographical Society, and he was even given further funding to go on another expedition to Africa.
[00:19:40] Burton was incensed, and would later claim that Speke and he had agreed to present their findings together, but his former colleague had betrayed him and gone back on his word, which was a serious no-no in Victorian England.
[00:19:58] Meanwhile, in 1860 Speke had returned to Africa, gone to Lake Victoria, and this time was better equipped.
[00:20:08] He managed to go all the way around Lake Victoria, and on the north side he found a waterfall that led to a large river that he claimed was the start of the White Nile.
[00:20:21] He returned to London, boasting about his findings, but there was still doubt. Burton said that the discovery of this waterfall and river didn’t mean anything, because Speke didn’t follow it all the way down to the Nile.
[00:20:37] The matter was to be solved once and for all, or at least publicly debated, at the Royal Geographical Society on the 16th of September 1864, 9 years after the first expedition.
[00:20:52] It would be a clash of the titans, Speke, in one corner, proposing that Lake Victoria was the true source of the White Nile, and Burton in the other, proposing that it was, in fact, Lake Tanganyika.
[00:21:07] And to make matters even more dramatic, the pair loathed one another, and hadn’t spoken for years.
[00:21:16] But it’s here that the story takes a dark turn.
[00:21:21] The day before the debate, Speke was out hunting at a friend’s estate when he was crossing a fence. His cousin was with him, and he heard a gunshot.
[00:21:34] He rushed over, and found Speke lying on the ground, covered in blood, shot in the chest by his own gun.
[00:21:43] A jury would later declare that it was an unfortunate accident; Speke was crossing the fence and the gun had accidentally gone off.
[00:21:53] But Burton took no time to question this, suggesting that his former partner had killed himself out of shame, to, and I’m quoting directly, avoid “exposure of his misstatements in regard to the Nile sources.”
[00:22:10] Speke was dead, and Burton was too weak to go on a similar expedition.
[00:22:17] And the mystery of the true origin of the Nile, was still unsolved.
[00:22:23] OK then, that is it for part one of this mini-series on the quest to find the true origin of The Nile.
[00:22:30] Next up will be Part Two, and in it we’ll meet a very different type of British explorer, the Scottish missionary, Sir David Livingstone, a man who disappeared off the face of the Earth in his search for the origin of the Nile.
[00:22:44] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:22:49] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is the start of a mini-series all about The Quest To Find The Origin of The River Nile.
[00:00:28] This was originally going to be a standalone episode, a single one, but there is so much to this story that we’ve split it into three parts.
[00:00:38] In this episode, part one, we’ll set the scene and tell the story of the first major expedition by a pair of British explorers, Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke. This is an absolutely amazing story of rivalry, exploration, near death experiences and the most almighty feud.
[00:00:59] Then in part two, which is going to be one of our member-only ones, we’ll learn about Dr David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer who disappeared off the face of the Earth, and it was only a plucky young Welshman who was brave enough to try to find him.
[00:01:15] And in the final episode, part three, we’ll learn about Henry Morton Stanley, the man who provided a definitive answer to the question and is perhaps the greatest explorer of the 19th century, or of all time, but a man whose legacy is debated to this very day.
[00:01:33] OK then, The Quest To Find The Origin of The River Nile.
[00:01:38] The quote “geography is destiny” is often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.
[00:01:47] He found this out the hard way in 1812, after experiencing the Russian winter and losing a reported 300,000 men in the process.
[00:01:58] But 14 years prior to this, Napoleon had invaded another country for which “geography is destiny” is even more applicable: Egypt.
[00:02:11] Egypt is one large desert. To be precise, 96% of the country is desert, dry sand and rocks, inhospitable terrain for all but the hardiest.
[00:02:22] But a small part of the country contains lush pastures, arable land, capable of producing grain, fruits and vegetables, and even cotton, a notoriously water-intensive plant.
[00:02:37] This was only made possible by The Nile, the vast river that flows through the country and provides the country with not just enough water to sustain its population, but would also flood every year and cover the nearby pastures with nutrient rich soil.
[00:02:56] So, understandably, the source of this water was of interest not just to the Ancient Egyptians, but anyone who set foot in the country.
[00:03:06] The Ancient Egyptians attributed the annual floods to the gods, believing that it must be some divine being that caused so much water to flow down, literally providing life for the people.
[00:03:20] Numerous Roman leaders, from Julius Caesar to Nero, sent expeditions to try to find where all this water was coming from, but they never managed to make much progress.
[00:03:33] You might think that finding the source of a river is relatively simple. You start at the mouth, where the river meets the sea, and just keep on sailing up the river until you find your answer.
[00:03:46] Unfortunately, in the case of The Nile, it isn’t quite that simple.
[00:03:52] Firstly, in modern South Sudan, around 2,500 kilometres south from where the Nile meets the Mediterranean, the Nile passes through a vast swamp called the Sudd. It is more than 50,000 kilometres squared, impenetrable to all but the smallest of boats, and anyone who got there was forced to turn around and return back downstream with the current.
[00:04:20] And on the subject of currents, the currents in the river Nile can be very strong, so especially in an era when boats would be reliant on man or wind power, in many parts the current was too strong, a boat simply couldn’t pass.
[00:04:37] You might think, ok, well if that’s the case then you can lift the boat out of the water and carry it around until the current is less strong.
[00:04:46] That is possible in some parts of The Nile, the part in modern-day Egypt for example, but let’s remember that The Nile is the longest river in the world.
[00:04:57] Well, in fact, there are some Brazilian researchers who are now saying that The Amazon is longer, but the point remains that The Nile is vast.
[00:05:06] It’s over 6,600 km long. If you imagine a river that went all the way from London to India, The Nile would still be longer.
[00:05:20] So you can certainly imagine how an expedition to try to find the source of The Nile, the “end” of the river, would require some serious preparation.
[00:05:30] Now, let me give you a little bit of a spoiler here, and tell you that The Nile has two sources, two origins: The Blue Nile and The White Nile.
[00:05:43] Roughly halfway up The Nile, in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum the river splits in two. The so-called Blue Nile goes to the East, and originates in Lake Tana in Ethiopia, while The White Nile continues south and originates, well, that was the mystery and that’s what we’ll talk about today.
[00:06:04] See, The Blue Nile was the tributary that brought the flood water every year, and its source was discovered relatively early, potentially as early as 1618 by a Spanish missionary, and certainly by a Scottish explorer in 1770.
[00:06:24] It turned out that the Blue Nile came from this large lake, which was full to the brim during the rainy season.
[00:06:32] The White Nile, however, was more mysterious.
[00:06:36] Its waters flowed all year round, but nobody knew for sure where it started.
[00:06:43] There were various theories, but these were all they were: theories.
[00:06:48] The prevailing theory about where it came from actually dates back all the way to Ptolemy, the 2nd century mathematician.
[00:06:58] Ptolemy had heard from a travelling merchant that the source of the water for the Nile was a group of large snow-capped mountains which he called the “mountains of the moon”.
[00:07:11] For almost two thousand years, it was believed by Europeans that there was a huge range of mountains that went through the middle of Africa, and it was the melting ice from these mountains that supplied the water for the continent’s largest river.
[00:07:28] See, European map makers had a relatively good understanding of the geography of the coast of Africa, but had very limited knowledge of the terrain inside this vast continent.
[00:07:41] It was a mystery, so for centuries Ptolemy’s version of these “mountains of the moon” was taken as gospel, and you can find maps of Africa even as late as 1813 with a huge mountain range that cuts through it.
[00:08:00] But, as European explorers started to travel further into Africa, there was no sign of this huge mountain range.
[00:08:10] If this huge mountain range didn’t exist–which of course it doesn’t–the source of the Nile must be elsewhere.
[00:08:19] And, as you may know, in the 19th century there was a growing interest in all things Ancient Egyptian, after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, as well as a general European imperialist notion of exploring the world and claiming territory.
[00:08:36] So, it was only natural, you could say, that with this came a renewed desire to answer the question of the true source of The White Nile once and for all.
[00:08:48] And it's here that I must introduce you to the protagonist of today’s episode, or at least one of the two lead characters.
[00:08:57] He was an Englishman called Richard Francis Burton.
[00:09:01] He had already made a name for himself for managing to travel to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, at a time when non-Muslims were not allowed, and if caught, would be executed.
[00:09:13] He was also a linguist, reportedly fluent in Arabic as well as 24 other languages and 12 dialects.
[00:09:21] In 1854, he was chosen by the British Royal Geographical Society to lead a mission to the “Lake regions of Central Africa”, where he would look for the origins of The White Nile.
[00:09:36] Given the many difficulties of travelling up The Nile by boat, from the strong currents to the swamps, rocky waters and waterfalls, Burton decided to land in Aden, in Somaliland and head west through Ethiopia.
[00:09:52] By this time, it was hypothesised that the source of the White Nile was probably a huge lake of some sort, so the mission was to go west into Africa, find a huge lake, then go all the way around the lake to see if there were large rivers flowing out of it that would lead to the Nile.
[00:10:12] Described like that it sounds almost easy, but as you’ll see, it most certainly wasn’t.
[00:10:21] When Burton arrived in Africa, he was joined by another Englishman by the name of John Hanning Speke.
[00:10:29] And, little did the pair know it, but this would be the start of one of 19th century exploration’s greatest rivalries and feuds.
[00:10:40] See, Burton and Speke were both Victorian explorers, united by an imperial mission, but they couldn’t have been more different.
[00:10:50] Burton was English, but he was treated as a foreigner in his own country.
[00:10:56] He had dark skin and a large bushy moustache, he looked more like an Arab than a 19th century Englishman. I mean, he had even managed to travel to the heart of Islam, Mecca, without anyone thinking he was anything other than a devout Muslim pilgrim, so that gives you an idea of his appearance.
[00:11:17] He was also a deeply cultured man, seeking knowledge for knowledge’s sake, or at least that is how he is remembered by some historians.
[00:11:27] Speke was an entirely different individual. He was more in the style of the classic imperial Victorian explorer. He was a light-haired aristocrat with a large country house in England.
[00:11:40] He had served in the British Army in India, and had travelled to Mount Everest and Nepal, so he was well-used to harsh conditions.
[00:11:50] He wanted to make a name for himself as an explorer, he wanted to take trinkets back to his family home in England, and so he had volunteered to join Burton on his African expedition.
[00:12:02] And to underline, the mission was Burton’s, he was the leader, but this was something that Speke would never fully accept. Speke considered himself to be Burton’s equal, and did not like the idea of being “second in command”.
[00:12:19] So, this gives you some idea of the characters of the pair.
[00:12:23] And of course, these two were far from alone.
[00:12:28] When they arrived in Africa, they hired as many local men as they could, literally hundreds of people to carry their belongings, cook for them, protect them, and guide them.
[00:12:39] And when I say “carry their belongings”, I mean it in the literal sense. A fly called the tsetse fly carried a disease that would kill horses and cows, so these explorers needed to hire humans to carry all of their possessions for them.
[00:12:58] As you can imagine, an expedition like this was an incredibly expensive affair.
[00:13:04] Now, the expedition didn’t get off to a great start when its camp was attacked by a group of Somali warriors, killing one of the explorers and leaving Burton with a spear that literally went through one cheek and out of the other.
[00:13:19] Speke was caught, tied up and stabbed 11 times with a spear before managing to escape.
[00:13:26] And a third member was killed.
[00:13:30] Burton was forced to abandon the mission, but in 1857, just a few years later, he would be back again.
[00:13:39] This time, Burton understandably opted to avoid Somaliland, instead landing further south in Zanzibar, and then heading inland. In case you need a reminder, Zanzibar is an island off the east coast of Africa, in modern day Tanzania.
[00:13:58] Once on the mainland, the group followed paths that had been used for centuries by Arab traders, but the journey was not exactly simple.
[00:14:07] Both Burton and Speke got malaria and were struck by other tropical diseases, and were carried for large parts of the journey.
[00:14:17] On February 13th of 1858, 253 days after having set off, they set eyes on the most amazing body of water.
[00:14:28] Lake Tanganyika, the second largest lake in Africa, and one that stretches almost 700 kilometres from top to bottom.
[00:14:37] Burton was amazed, believing that this huge body of water must be the source of the Nile.
[00:14:45] Speke, on the other hand, didn’t see anything.
[00:14:49] He had been temporarily blinded by a tropical disease, so he had to take Burton’s word for it, he had to accept what he said.
[00:14:58] In fact, Speke wasn’t just temporarily blind, he was deaf as well, after a particularly gruesome incident that isn’t directly relevant to our story, but does give you some sense of what these men were going through.
[00:15:13] One evening, there was a huge storm and Speke’s tent was blown away. He tried to light a candle to see what was going on, but when he lit the candle, he was attacked by a swarm of beetles. There seemed to be nothing he could do to get them away, so he lay down and tried to get to sleep.
[00:15:35] As he was sleeping, a beetle crawled into his ear. Not just around his ear, but properly into his ear canal, and it was burrowing deeper and deeper, digging at his ear drum. Speke did everything he could to try to get it out. Shaking and scratching, and he even melted butter, but it was all to no avail.
[00:16:00] Eventually, he was so desperate that he got his knife and thrust it into his ear. He managed to kill the beetle, but it made him go deaf in the process.
[00:16:11] And apparently for months afterwards, he continued to find little pieces of beetle coming out of his ear.
[00:16:19] Disgusting, I know.
[00:16:21] Now, by the time they had arrived at Lake Tanganyika, Burton was so ill that he was content enough to accept that this was the source of the Nile.
[00:16:32] After all, it looked like a big lake, it was roughly in the right place, and the men had gone through hell, had almost died multiple times, and Burton probably felt like he was going to die any day.
[00:16:46] It’s hardly surprising that he was happy to say “ok, that’s good enough for me, let’s head home”.
[00:16:53] Speke, on the other hand, wanted to keep going. Yes, it was a big lake, but this wasn’t proof that it was the source of the Nile.
[00:17:03] The pair split, with Burton staying put and Speke continuing north until he reached an even bigger lake a few hundred kilometres to the north east, Lake Nyanza.
[00:17:15] Speke, in the imperialist tradition, decided to give it a completely different name, declaring that it was to be called Lake Victoria, after the British queen at the time.
[00:17:27] And as a reminder of where we are in Africa, Lake Victoria is just over 700 kilometres inland from the east coast of Africa. Most of it is split between modern day Tanzania and Uganda, but there’s a little slither in Kenya as well.
[00:17:45] Now, by the time Speke had got to Lake Victoria, he was a wreck, as was his group.
[00:17:52] His vision was almost gone, the mapping equipment they had brought had been lost or stolen, they had barely anything left.
[00:18:01] They also didn’t have the right boats to properly explore the lake, so they couldn’t go around it to properly map it and see if it really did lead to the Nile.
[00:18:12] One thing that Speke was able to do, however, was boil water.
[00:18:18] He noticed that it took longer to boil water here than at Lake Tanganyika, which meant that it must be higher in altitude. And if it was higher and further north, it was more likely to be the ultimate source of The Nile.
[00:18:35] Speke returned to Burton, declaring that he had discovered the source of The Nile.
[00:18:43] Burton said something along the lines of “ok, certainly could be”, but insisted that they needed more proof. What Speke had found was interesting, but not conclusive, according to Burton.
[00:18:57] Speke was deeply offended that Burton hadn’t accepted his conclusion, there was a huge argument. The feud was so great, in fact, that the two men travelled in separate ships back to the UK.
[00:19:12] Speke, it would turn out, rushed back to London so that he could present his findings to the Royal Geographical Society before Burton, claiming the glory of “discovering” the origin of The Nile for himself.
[00:19:28] And it worked, or at least his findings were accepted by the Royal Geographical Society, and he was even given further funding to go on another expedition to Africa.
[00:19:40] Burton was incensed, and would later claim that Speke and he had agreed to present their findings together, but his former colleague had betrayed him and gone back on his word, which was a serious no-no in Victorian England.
[00:19:58] Meanwhile, in 1860 Speke had returned to Africa, gone to Lake Victoria, and this time was better equipped.
[00:20:08] He managed to go all the way around Lake Victoria, and on the north side he found a waterfall that led to a large river that he claimed was the start of the White Nile.
[00:20:21] He returned to London, boasting about his findings, but there was still doubt. Burton said that the discovery of this waterfall and river didn’t mean anything, because Speke didn’t follow it all the way down to the Nile.
[00:20:37] The matter was to be solved once and for all, or at least publicly debated, at the Royal Geographical Society on the 16th of September 1864, 9 years after the first expedition.
[00:20:52] It would be a clash of the titans, Speke, in one corner, proposing that Lake Victoria was the true source of the White Nile, and Burton in the other, proposing that it was, in fact, Lake Tanganyika.
[00:21:07] And to make matters even more dramatic, the pair loathed one another, and hadn’t spoken for years.
[00:21:16] But it’s here that the story takes a dark turn.
[00:21:21] The day before the debate, Speke was out hunting at a friend’s estate when he was crossing a fence. His cousin was with him, and he heard a gunshot.
[00:21:34] He rushed over, and found Speke lying on the ground, covered in blood, shot in the chest by his own gun.
[00:21:43] A jury would later declare that it was an unfortunate accident; Speke was crossing the fence and the gun had accidentally gone off.
[00:21:53] But Burton took no time to question this, suggesting that his former partner had killed himself out of shame, to, and I’m quoting directly, avoid “exposure of his misstatements in regard to the Nile sources.”
[00:22:10] Speke was dead, and Burton was too weak to go on a similar expedition.
[00:22:17] And the mystery of the true origin of the Nile, was still unsolved.
[00:22:23] OK then, that is it for part one of this mini-series on the quest to find the true origin of The Nile.
[00:22:30] Next up will be Part Two, and in it we’ll meet a very different type of British explorer, the Scottish missionary, Sir David Livingstone, a man who disappeared off the face of the Earth in his search for the origin of the Nile.
[00:22:44] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:22:49] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is the start of a mini-series all about The Quest To Find The Origin of The River Nile.
[00:00:28] This was originally going to be a standalone episode, a single one, but there is so much to this story that we’ve split it into three parts.
[00:00:38] In this episode, part one, we’ll set the scene and tell the story of the first major expedition by a pair of British explorers, Sir Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke. This is an absolutely amazing story of rivalry, exploration, near death experiences and the most almighty feud.
[00:00:59] Then in part two, which is going to be one of our member-only ones, we’ll learn about Dr David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer who disappeared off the face of the Earth, and it was only a plucky young Welshman who was brave enough to try to find him.
[00:01:15] And in the final episode, part three, we’ll learn about Henry Morton Stanley, the man who provided a definitive answer to the question and is perhaps the greatest explorer of the 19th century, or of all time, but a man whose legacy is debated to this very day.
[00:01:33] OK then, The Quest To Find The Origin of The River Nile.
[00:01:38] The quote “geography is destiny” is often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.
[00:01:47] He found this out the hard way in 1812, after experiencing the Russian winter and losing a reported 300,000 men in the process.
[00:01:58] But 14 years prior to this, Napoleon had invaded another country for which “geography is destiny” is even more applicable: Egypt.
[00:02:11] Egypt is one large desert. To be precise, 96% of the country is desert, dry sand and rocks, inhospitable terrain for all but the hardiest.
[00:02:22] But a small part of the country contains lush pastures, arable land, capable of producing grain, fruits and vegetables, and even cotton, a notoriously water-intensive plant.
[00:02:37] This was only made possible by The Nile, the vast river that flows through the country and provides the country with not just enough water to sustain its population, but would also flood every year and cover the nearby pastures with nutrient rich soil.
[00:02:56] So, understandably, the source of this water was of interest not just to the Ancient Egyptians, but anyone who set foot in the country.
[00:03:06] The Ancient Egyptians attributed the annual floods to the gods, believing that it must be some divine being that caused so much water to flow down, literally providing life for the people.
[00:03:20] Numerous Roman leaders, from Julius Caesar to Nero, sent expeditions to try to find where all this water was coming from, but they never managed to make much progress.
[00:03:33] You might think that finding the source of a river is relatively simple. You start at the mouth, where the river meets the sea, and just keep on sailing up the river until you find your answer.
[00:03:46] Unfortunately, in the case of The Nile, it isn’t quite that simple.
[00:03:52] Firstly, in modern South Sudan, around 2,500 kilometres south from where the Nile meets the Mediterranean, the Nile passes through a vast swamp called the Sudd. It is more than 50,000 kilometres squared, impenetrable to all but the smallest of boats, and anyone who got there was forced to turn around and return back downstream with the current.
[00:04:20] And on the subject of currents, the currents in the river Nile can be very strong, so especially in an era when boats would be reliant on man or wind power, in many parts the current was too strong, a boat simply couldn’t pass.
[00:04:37] You might think, ok, well if that’s the case then you can lift the boat out of the water and carry it around until the current is less strong.
[00:04:46] That is possible in some parts of The Nile, the part in modern-day Egypt for example, but let’s remember that The Nile is the longest river in the world.
[00:04:57] Well, in fact, there are some Brazilian researchers who are now saying that The Amazon is longer, but the point remains that The Nile is vast.
[00:05:06] It’s over 6,600 km long. If you imagine a river that went all the way from London to India, The Nile would still be longer.
[00:05:20] So you can certainly imagine how an expedition to try to find the source of The Nile, the “end” of the river, would require some serious preparation.
[00:05:30] Now, let me give you a little bit of a spoiler here, and tell you that The Nile has two sources, two origins: The Blue Nile and The White Nile.
[00:05:43] Roughly halfway up The Nile, in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum the river splits in two. The so-called Blue Nile goes to the East, and originates in Lake Tana in Ethiopia, while The White Nile continues south and originates, well, that was the mystery and that’s what we’ll talk about today.
[00:06:04] See, The Blue Nile was the tributary that brought the flood water every year, and its source was discovered relatively early, potentially as early as 1618 by a Spanish missionary, and certainly by a Scottish explorer in 1770.
[00:06:24] It turned out that the Blue Nile came from this large lake, which was full to the brim during the rainy season.
[00:06:32] The White Nile, however, was more mysterious.
[00:06:36] Its waters flowed all year round, but nobody knew for sure where it started.
[00:06:43] There were various theories, but these were all they were: theories.
[00:06:48] The prevailing theory about where it came from actually dates back all the way to Ptolemy, the 2nd century mathematician.
[00:06:58] Ptolemy had heard from a travelling merchant that the source of the water for the Nile was a group of large snow-capped mountains which he called the “mountains of the moon”.
[00:07:11] For almost two thousand years, it was believed by Europeans that there was a huge range of mountains that went through the middle of Africa, and it was the melting ice from these mountains that supplied the water for the continent’s largest river.
[00:07:28] See, European map makers had a relatively good understanding of the geography of the coast of Africa, but had very limited knowledge of the terrain inside this vast continent.
[00:07:41] It was a mystery, so for centuries Ptolemy’s version of these “mountains of the moon” was taken as gospel, and you can find maps of Africa even as late as 1813 with a huge mountain range that cuts through it.
[00:08:00] But, as European explorers started to travel further into Africa, there was no sign of this huge mountain range.
[00:08:10] If this huge mountain range didn’t exist–which of course it doesn’t–the source of the Nile must be elsewhere.
[00:08:19] And, as you may know, in the 19th century there was a growing interest in all things Ancient Egyptian, after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, as well as a general European imperialist notion of exploring the world and claiming territory.
[00:08:36] So, it was only natural, you could say, that with this came a renewed desire to answer the question of the true source of The White Nile once and for all.
[00:08:48] And it's here that I must introduce you to the protagonist of today’s episode, or at least one of the two lead characters.
[00:08:57] He was an Englishman called Richard Francis Burton.
[00:09:01] He had already made a name for himself for managing to travel to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, at a time when non-Muslims were not allowed, and if caught, would be executed.
[00:09:13] He was also a linguist, reportedly fluent in Arabic as well as 24 other languages and 12 dialects.
[00:09:21] In 1854, he was chosen by the British Royal Geographical Society to lead a mission to the “Lake regions of Central Africa”, where he would look for the origins of The White Nile.
[00:09:36] Given the many difficulties of travelling up The Nile by boat, from the strong currents to the swamps, rocky waters and waterfalls, Burton decided to land in Aden, in Somaliland and head west through Ethiopia.
[00:09:52] By this time, it was hypothesised that the source of the White Nile was probably a huge lake of some sort, so the mission was to go west into Africa, find a huge lake, then go all the way around the lake to see if there were large rivers flowing out of it that would lead to the Nile.
[00:10:12] Described like that it sounds almost easy, but as you’ll see, it most certainly wasn’t.
[00:10:21] When Burton arrived in Africa, he was joined by another Englishman by the name of John Hanning Speke.
[00:10:29] And, little did the pair know it, but this would be the start of one of 19th century exploration’s greatest rivalries and feuds.
[00:10:40] See, Burton and Speke were both Victorian explorers, united by an imperial mission, but they couldn’t have been more different.
[00:10:50] Burton was English, but he was treated as a foreigner in his own country.
[00:10:56] He had dark skin and a large bushy moustache, he looked more like an Arab than a 19th century Englishman. I mean, he had even managed to travel to the heart of Islam, Mecca, without anyone thinking he was anything other than a devout Muslim pilgrim, so that gives you an idea of his appearance.
[00:11:17] He was also a deeply cultured man, seeking knowledge for knowledge’s sake, or at least that is how he is remembered by some historians.
[00:11:27] Speke was an entirely different individual. He was more in the style of the classic imperial Victorian explorer. He was a light-haired aristocrat with a large country house in England.
[00:11:40] He had served in the British Army in India, and had travelled to Mount Everest and Nepal, so he was well-used to harsh conditions.
[00:11:50] He wanted to make a name for himself as an explorer, he wanted to take trinkets back to his family home in England, and so he had volunteered to join Burton on his African expedition.
[00:12:02] And to underline, the mission was Burton’s, he was the leader, but this was something that Speke would never fully accept. Speke considered himself to be Burton’s equal, and did not like the idea of being “second in command”.
[00:12:19] So, this gives you some idea of the characters of the pair.
[00:12:23] And of course, these two were far from alone.
[00:12:28] When they arrived in Africa, they hired as many local men as they could, literally hundreds of people to carry their belongings, cook for them, protect them, and guide them.
[00:12:39] And when I say “carry their belongings”, I mean it in the literal sense. A fly called the tsetse fly carried a disease that would kill horses and cows, so these explorers needed to hire humans to carry all of their possessions for them.
[00:12:58] As you can imagine, an expedition like this was an incredibly expensive affair.
[00:13:04] Now, the expedition didn’t get off to a great start when its camp was attacked by a group of Somali warriors, killing one of the explorers and leaving Burton with a spear that literally went through one cheek and out of the other.
[00:13:19] Speke was caught, tied up and stabbed 11 times with a spear before managing to escape.
[00:13:26] And a third member was killed.
[00:13:30] Burton was forced to abandon the mission, but in 1857, just a few years later, he would be back again.
[00:13:39] This time, Burton understandably opted to avoid Somaliland, instead landing further south in Zanzibar, and then heading inland. In case you need a reminder, Zanzibar is an island off the east coast of Africa, in modern day Tanzania.
[00:13:58] Once on the mainland, the group followed paths that had been used for centuries by Arab traders, but the journey was not exactly simple.
[00:14:07] Both Burton and Speke got malaria and were struck by other tropical diseases, and were carried for large parts of the journey.
[00:14:17] On February 13th of 1858, 253 days after having set off, they set eyes on the most amazing body of water.
[00:14:28] Lake Tanganyika, the second largest lake in Africa, and one that stretches almost 700 kilometres from top to bottom.
[00:14:37] Burton was amazed, believing that this huge body of water must be the source of the Nile.
[00:14:45] Speke, on the other hand, didn’t see anything.
[00:14:49] He had been temporarily blinded by a tropical disease, so he had to take Burton’s word for it, he had to accept what he said.
[00:14:58] In fact, Speke wasn’t just temporarily blind, he was deaf as well, after a particularly gruesome incident that isn’t directly relevant to our story, but does give you some sense of what these men were going through.
[00:15:13] One evening, there was a huge storm and Speke’s tent was blown away. He tried to light a candle to see what was going on, but when he lit the candle, he was attacked by a swarm of beetles. There seemed to be nothing he could do to get them away, so he lay down and tried to get to sleep.
[00:15:35] As he was sleeping, a beetle crawled into his ear. Not just around his ear, but properly into his ear canal, and it was burrowing deeper and deeper, digging at his ear drum. Speke did everything he could to try to get it out. Shaking and scratching, and he even melted butter, but it was all to no avail.
[00:16:00] Eventually, he was so desperate that he got his knife and thrust it into his ear. He managed to kill the beetle, but it made him go deaf in the process.
[00:16:11] And apparently for months afterwards, he continued to find little pieces of beetle coming out of his ear.
[00:16:19] Disgusting, I know.
[00:16:21] Now, by the time they had arrived at Lake Tanganyika, Burton was so ill that he was content enough to accept that this was the source of the Nile.
[00:16:32] After all, it looked like a big lake, it was roughly in the right place, and the men had gone through hell, had almost died multiple times, and Burton probably felt like he was going to die any day.
[00:16:46] It’s hardly surprising that he was happy to say “ok, that’s good enough for me, let’s head home”.
[00:16:53] Speke, on the other hand, wanted to keep going. Yes, it was a big lake, but this wasn’t proof that it was the source of the Nile.
[00:17:03] The pair split, with Burton staying put and Speke continuing north until he reached an even bigger lake a few hundred kilometres to the north east, Lake Nyanza.
[00:17:15] Speke, in the imperialist tradition, decided to give it a completely different name, declaring that it was to be called Lake Victoria, after the British queen at the time.
[00:17:27] And as a reminder of where we are in Africa, Lake Victoria is just over 700 kilometres inland from the east coast of Africa. Most of it is split between modern day Tanzania and Uganda, but there’s a little slither in Kenya as well.
[00:17:45] Now, by the time Speke had got to Lake Victoria, he was a wreck, as was his group.
[00:17:52] His vision was almost gone, the mapping equipment they had brought had been lost or stolen, they had barely anything left.
[00:18:01] They also didn’t have the right boats to properly explore the lake, so they couldn’t go around it to properly map it and see if it really did lead to the Nile.
[00:18:12] One thing that Speke was able to do, however, was boil water.
[00:18:18] He noticed that it took longer to boil water here than at Lake Tanganyika, which meant that it must be higher in altitude. And if it was higher and further north, it was more likely to be the ultimate source of The Nile.
[00:18:35] Speke returned to Burton, declaring that he had discovered the source of The Nile.
[00:18:43] Burton said something along the lines of “ok, certainly could be”, but insisted that they needed more proof. What Speke had found was interesting, but not conclusive, according to Burton.
[00:18:57] Speke was deeply offended that Burton hadn’t accepted his conclusion, there was a huge argument. The feud was so great, in fact, that the two men travelled in separate ships back to the UK.
[00:19:12] Speke, it would turn out, rushed back to London so that he could present his findings to the Royal Geographical Society before Burton, claiming the glory of “discovering” the origin of The Nile for himself.
[00:19:28] And it worked, or at least his findings were accepted by the Royal Geographical Society, and he was even given further funding to go on another expedition to Africa.
[00:19:40] Burton was incensed, and would later claim that Speke and he had agreed to present their findings together, but his former colleague had betrayed him and gone back on his word, which was a serious no-no in Victorian England.
[00:19:58] Meanwhile, in 1860 Speke had returned to Africa, gone to Lake Victoria, and this time was better equipped.
[00:20:08] He managed to go all the way around Lake Victoria, and on the north side he found a waterfall that led to a large river that he claimed was the start of the White Nile.
[00:20:21] He returned to London, boasting about his findings, but there was still doubt. Burton said that the discovery of this waterfall and river didn’t mean anything, because Speke didn’t follow it all the way down to the Nile.
[00:20:37] The matter was to be solved once and for all, or at least publicly debated, at the Royal Geographical Society on the 16th of September 1864, 9 years after the first expedition.
[00:20:52] It would be a clash of the titans, Speke, in one corner, proposing that Lake Victoria was the true source of the White Nile, and Burton in the other, proposing that it was, in fact, Lake Tanganyika.
[00:21:07] And to make matters even more dramatic, the pair loathed one another, and hadn’t spoken for years.
[00:21:16] But it’s here that the story takes a dark turn.
[00:21:21] The day before the debate, Speke was out hunting at a friend’s estate when he was crossing a fence. His cousin was with him, and he heard a gunshot.
[00:21:34] He rushed over, and found Speke lying on the ground, covered in blood, shot in the chest by his own gun.
[00:21:43] A jury would later declare that it was an unfortunate accident; Speke was crossing the fence and the gun had accidentally gone off.
[00:21:53] But Burton took no time to question this, suggesting that his former partner had killed himself out of shame, to, and I’m quoting directly, avoid “exposure of his misstatements in regard to the Nile sources.”
[00:22:10] Speke was dead, and Burton was too weak to go on a similar expedition.
[00:22:17] And the mystery of the true origin of the Nile, was still unsolved.
[00:22:23] OK then, that is it for part one of this mini-series on the quest to find the true origin of The Nile.
[00:22:30] Next up will be Part Two, and in it we’ll meet a very different type of British explorer, the Scottish missionary, Sir David Livingstone, a man who disappeared off the face of the Earth in his search for the origin of the Nile.
[00:22:44] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:22:49] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
