The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Discovery of the Source of the Nile, by
John Hanning Speke

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Title: The Discovery of the Source of the Nile

Author: John Hanning Speke

Posting Date: January 26, 2009 [EBook #3284]
Release Date: June, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOURCE OF THE NILE ***

Produced by Laura Shaffer and J.C. Byers

THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCE OF THE NILE

By John Hanning Speke

John Hanning Speke, born 1827. Served in the Punjab but left in 1854
to explore Somaliland. Discovered Lake Tanganyika with Burton, and Lake
Victoria independently. Was, with Grant, the first European to cross
equatorial africa. Died 1864.

Editor's Note

John Hanning Speke was a man of thirty-six, when his Nile Journal
appeared. He had entered the army in 1844, and completed ten years of
service in India, serving through the Punjab Campaign. Already he had
conceived the idea of exploring Africa, before his ten years were up,
and on their conclusion he was appointed a member of the expedition
preparing to start under Sir Richard (then Lieutenant Burton) for the
Somali country. He was wounded by the Somalis, and returned to England
on sick leave; the Crimean War then breaking out, be served through it,
and later, December 1856, joined another expedition under Burton. Then
it was that the possibility of the source of the Nile being traced to
one of the inland lakes seems to have struck him.

Burton's illness prevented him accompanying Speke on the latter's visit
to the lake now known as Victoria Nyanza. During this expedition Speke
reached the most southerly point of the lake, and gave it its present
name. Speke arrived back in England in the spring of 1859, Burton being
left behind on account of his illness. The relations between the two had
become strained, and this was accentuated by Speke's hast to publish
the account of his explorations. He was given the command of another
expedition which left England in April 1860, in company with Captain
James Augustus Grant, to ascertain still further if the Victoria Nyanza
were indeed the source of the Nile. He met Sir Samuel Baker,