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The Curse of the Nile Explorers
by
Kirsten Berg
It might be hard to imagine, but in the days before satellites were thrown up into the heavens loaded with cameras and transmitters, the entire world was not mapped, digitized, and available online. "Darkest Africa" was indeed dark, its interior impenetrable. Through the centuries mapmakers had become ingenious in their methods of camouflaging the unknown with clouds, elaborate cartouches, and hydra-headed monsters. To explorers, those empty spaces were a Siren's song.
James Bruce – The Blue Nile
While scholars believe that the first European to reach the headwaters of the Nile was the Jesuit Pedro Paez in 1615, there is no published account of his travels. James Bruce (1730-1794) reached the headwaters of the Blue Nile after years of exploring Africa; his story wouldn't be published until 1790, a full twenty years following this accomplishment.
Born in Kinnaird, Stirlingshire, James Bruce grew to a stunning height of 6' 4" and threw over the study of law for a life of adventure. He traveled to Spain and Portugal, married and became a widower within a year. After his wife's death he took up the study of Arabic and the classical languages of Abyssinia, and resolved to travel to the source of the Nile, which had remained a geographical mystery throughout the ages.
Bruce, now schooled in the arts of archaeology, sketching, medicine, and astronomy, set out on his travels. Encountering exotic personages and enough danger to fill a Spielberg script, in 1770 he "stood in rapture"1 above the village of Geesh, gazing at what he believed was the source of the Nile.
"[T]he mountains to the west are part of, or at least join the mountain of Aformasha, where, from a direction nearly SE they turn south, and inclose the villages and territory of Sacala, which lie at the foot of them, and still lower, that is more to the westward, the small village of Geesh, where are the long-expected fountains of the Nile."2
While this was a sublime moment for Bruce, he was only partially correct in his assumption. The headwater he had "found" was the source of the Blue Nile, in Ethiopia, approximately 2,700 miles from the Nile Delta. His expedition was only partly completed; not until late November of 1772 did he emerge from the desert at Assouan, a frontier town in Egypt. Bruce spent the next year and a half in Europe, enjoying the amenities of the French. He also had a debt of honor to pay in Italy to a certain gentleman who had had the audacity to marry, during Bruce's absence in Africa, a lady to whom Bruce had believed himself engaged.3
Upon his return to England, public fervor was soon against him; his countrymen were scandalized by his tales of the Abyssinian practice of eating raw meat cut from living flesh.4 He ran afoul of Samuel Johnson and though he did attain the personal notice of the King, no other honors were conferred upon him.
James Bruce retired to his family lands in Scotland, where coal had been discovered and his fortune assured. Not until the death of his second wife, years after his travels had concluded, did he write his story, and in 1790 the five volumes of Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile were published.
James Bruce died in Scotland in 1794. The courageous man had survived disease, the desert, and the dangerous politics of warring African kingdoms only to loose his footing while hurrying to assist a lady into her carriage. He fell down the stairs and died the next day.
John Speke – The White Nile
John Hanning Speke (1827-1864) was raised to join the British Army. His father had been a captain in the Dragoons; Speke himself would achieve a captaincy during ten years' service in the Punjab. Hunting and exploring through the Himalayas and into Tibet, Speke proved himself an able sportsman, and in 1854 he joined an expedition into Somali territory under the command of Lieutenant Richard Burton.
The expedition failed. The Somalis attacked and Speke was wounded. He returned to England on sick leave, only to volunteer for the Crimean campaign. At the end of his service in the Crimean, he was once again recruited for an expedition under Burton, with orders from the Royal Geographical Society to explore the lands surrounding Lake Nyassa.5
An Arab trader gave them information about three inland lakes. Speke believed that the northernmost lake might be a source of the Nile, and the expedition made its way to Lake Tanganyika in January of 1858. Burton was disabled with sickness; Speke was suffering from "ophthalmia, and a weakness in the lower extremities resembling paralysis."6 Armchair explorers will delight in the passages of What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile describing a black beetle that lodged in Speke's inner ear, and the troubles that arose from that creature and Speke's attempts to remove it. (This involved melted butter, and then a knife was introduced.)
In a dugout canoe on Lake Tanganyika, Speke sketched part of the Mountains of the Moon in his journal. Due to Burton's illness and the need to re-supply, the men returned to Kaze, a trip which took several months. Speke wanted to trek to the northernmost lake he had been told of, and spoke to Burton about the possibility. He writes:
"I wished to finish off the navigation of the lake; but Captain Burton declared he would not, as he had had enough of canoe-travelling, and thought our being short of cloth, and out of leave, would be sufficient excuse for him."7
Speke comments that he then proposed that the ill Burton rest, and collect stories and information from the Arab travelers who might cross Burton's path, while Speke did just a bit more exploring. Burton agreed to this plan, complaining that the expedition "hitherto had been so uninteresting,"8 that the book he'd planned to write about their experiences and the region was going to need some padding.
Parting from the rather sour-sounding Burton, Speke traveled for twenty-five days with a large retinue of bearers. He did find the northernmost lake, spoken of by the natives. Lake Victoria Nyanza was named by Speke, who considered this the source of the Nile. After a brief exploration of the area, he returned and told Burton of the discovery.
"I expressed my regret…that he did not accompany me, as I felt quite certain in my mind I had discovered the source of the Nile. This he naturally objected to, even after hearing all my reasons for saying so, and therefore the subject was dropped." 9
Speke had not circumnavigated Lake Victoria. Such an exploration would have, of course, taken months; he was averaging nine miles per day through the jungle. Speke had been told by traders in the area that the lake was "so broad you could not see across it, and so long that nobody knew its length."10
The expedition over, Speke and Burton returned to Zanzibar. Speke quickly booked passage on a ship returning to England; Burton remained behind. Speke reported to the Geographical Society on his findings, lectured publicly on the discovery of lakes Victoria and Tanganyika, and was named by the Society as the leader of the next expedition.
When Burton returned to England some weeks later, the rift between the two explorers deepened with Speke's publication of his version of the expedition and discoveries in Blackwood's magazine. Burton countered with the publication of The Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa, which criticized Speke's theory and accomplishments. That the lake had not been thoroughly explored, and all of its outlets traced, was a major source of the criticism aimed against Speke's claim of having discovered the Nile's source.
Several years passed. Speke returned to Africa and the lakes while Burton traveled through North America. Speke was honored upon his return to England in 1863 and published Journal of the Discovery of the Nile. The animosity between the two grew, as professional jealousy was manipulated by those who regarded the feud as sport. "Great public interest was taken in the matter,"11 while the two explorers used the journals of the day as today celebrities use talk shows, and thumbed their noses at each other.
A debate was arranged, and Speke and Burton were scheduled to meet and speak in front of a meeting of the geographical section of the British Association in September of 1864. Those involved waited patiently, but John Hanning Speke never arrived. He had died earlier that morning, shot accidentally by his own gun while out hunting partridge. The greatly anticipated debate between two of England's most daring explorers over the mystery of the source of the Nile never took place.
Both James Bruce and John Hanning Speke met deaths that were rather less glorious than their lives. A curse of the Nile explorers? Perhaps a better explanation is this: their unquenchable curiosity, bravery, and need to live a life bigger than the lives of their contemporaries ultimately led them to a fall from a staircase and a discharge of bird shot. After the miles traveled and dangers overcome, after chasing glory and adventure, these two explorers were only too human, in the end.
With special thanks to Jamie McNulty for additional research and inspiration.
1. Dictionary of National Biography, p. 99
2. James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Vol. 3 p. 581
3. DNB p. 101
4. DNB p.101 "the devourers of putrid venison could not digest the devourers of raw beef."
5. DNB p. 732 Lake Nyassa would be "discovered" by Dr. David Livingstone in 1859.
6. Speke, What Led to the Discovery, p. 206
7. Speke, ibid, p. 250
8. Speke, ibid, p. 251
9. Speke, ibid, p. 370
10. Speke, ibid, p. 307
11. DNB p. 735
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