Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke

This month I have fallen down one of the biggest rabbit holes ever! The story is full of intrigue and deceit, finalizing in foul play and one-upmanship with a dash of murder-suicide thrown in for good measure!

I can only be talking about two extremely different explorers thrust together by the Royal Geographical Society to find the true source of the White Nile. Africa and explorers are inextricably intertwined, the Victorian’s wealth and thirst for colonialism has never been matched. A tiny country split into four nations managed to control 40% of the earth. That is some feat by any nation's standards.

In 1856 a true-blue English gentleman soldier was paired with an eccentric genius on an exploration that would change the world. At this point in time, anything below the Sahara Desert was considered deepest darkest Africa and was unknown. Arab slave traders were the only non-Africans to know anything of this enormous part of the world.

The Team

Richard Francis Burton, not to be confused with the husband of Elizabeth Taylor, was a polyglot who spoke over twenty-five languages fluently, and was one of the foremost anthropologists of his time. He had traveled the length and breadth of India and fought for the British East Indian Army. And was an eccentric by Victorian Standards as he believed the way to rule a country was to understand the inhabitants. The second person chosen by the Royal Geographical Society was John Hanning Speke a strait-laced British Officer and gentleman with great connections and a desire to be known as a British Victorian Explorer.

After reading both of their biographies and watching countless YouTube videos I believe it was a terrible match of characters and this was born out in during the expedition.

The Spice Islands

In 1856 the Royal Geographical Society funded an expedition for Burton and Speke to the then utterly unknown Lake Region of Central Africa (one of my favourite areas). The remit was to find the elusive source of the White Nile. A true prize to the Victorians, compared with the finding of the Americas. Any man who managed to locate the source would be lauded in England and would be able to ask for his heart’s desire from the Society. It was agreed that the journey would begin on the spice island of Zanzibar as there were ample supplies and porters were easy to hire.

Although Burton had traveled across India and Afghanistan and been a fighting soldier since he was twenty-one, he writes in his journal:

“As we approach the spice islands on the monsoon wind, the gentle waves and crystal-clear water are marred only by the cadavers that float silently past the hull of the ship. I later learned the Arab slave traders cast the sick and weak off the slave boats before entering the port to avoid import duty.”

This was before Great Britain decided the slave trade was a bad thing, as Burton then met with Tippu Tu and asked for his advice on entering the interior of Africa.

They were told that there was a long narrow lake that was deep inside the interior that no white man had ever seen. This excited Speke who was chomping at the bit for fame and fortune, he wanted to be a Victorian hero.

Victorian Explorers Caravan

Their caravan consisted of a group of Baluchi Mercenaries led by Ramji, 132 porters all led by an Arab Slave trader called Said bin Salim. They left Zanzibar and sailed to the ancient port of Bagamoyo on the mainland. Here they sourced donkeys, which were to be an awful choice for the expedition, and extra porters both enforced and paid, then trekked across the country to Kezeh (Tabora) a slavery outpost. At Kezeh, Burton became gravely ill, and Speke went temporarily blind. At this point, I am not sure if they were explorers or just being carried along in their litters through the harsh country. The slave traders seemed to want them around and helped them at every opportunity.

However, Burton and Speke continued into the interior, but Burton was becoming increasingly disturbed by the way Speke treated the porters and his authority. Speke regularly complained about Burton’s way of running things and thoroughly disagreed with Burton’s anthropological ways. They bickered over most decisions during the expedition. I can understand Speke’s point of view as he was a pure Victorian explorer who believed that everyone should bow down to the British. He was an accomplished soldier who enjoyed physical activity and shooting things. Whereas Burton was all of that plus an academic genius and politician. Where Speke would get the guns out if they needed to cross a local chief’s land, Burton would sit with the chief and make friends and then politically move through the area. During the Victorian times fraternizing with the natives was unthought of! The tension between the two was clear as the expedition reached Ujiji in February of 1858, one of the oldest towns in Tanzania, and on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, the second largest of the lakes in Eastern Africa and the longest lake in the world. They were the first Europeans to reach the lake and Speke was convinced it was the source of the Nile they had been looking for.

Sickness and Slavery

At this point, Burton was critically ill with a mixture of cholera and malaria, and Speke was almost blind. The porters had carted them over one thousand kilometers (six hundred miles) across Africa using the slave routes and stopping at slavery outposts along the way for food and medicine.

Burton was not convinced that they had found the source and decided it was wise to investigate further. As he was so sick, he sent Speke across the lake to try and hire some boats to allow them to explore the lake further. Lake Tanganyika is four hundred miles long and thirty miles wide. Speke fumbled, his eyesight deteriorating. At one point he was marooned on an island and almost lost his hearing as a beetle crawled into his ear and he had to remove it with a knife. Speke returned a month later without any boats and was blamed by Burton for delaying the expedition and trying to find the source on his own.

Lake Tanganyika

Burton and Speke ended up renting the largest canoes they could after hearing a rumour that there was a river at the head of the lake that could lead to the Nile. Eight porters carried Burton to his canoe as he was too sick to walk at this point and they set off along Lake Tanganyika. After a few weeks of searching their guide, Sidi Mubaraka Bombay, confirmed with some locals that the fabled river flowed into the lake and so could not be the source they were searching for.

Nam Lolwe

The expedition returned to Ujiji defeated, they recuperated and decided to return to Zanzibar as their supplies had run dangerously low. When they reached Kazeh, Sidi Bombay came to them with a rumour that there was an enormous lake that went on forever just to the North of them. This is where the story becomes interesting. Burton, I think, was a true explorer and just wanted to map the country and learn about the people. Whereas Speke was going places and wanted fame and glory.

Burton was too sick to undertake the extra trek, and so he waited in Kazeh while Speke, although partially blind, undertook the 452-mile (730 km) journey which took 47 days to the shores of Nam Lolwe, in the Dholou language, and promptly named it Lake Victoria! He became the first European to see the lake, although the Dholou people had lived there for over eight hundred years, you can read my blog on the Lou tribe here.

By the time Speke reached the southern end of the lake most of the expedition’s equipment had been lost, stolen, or sold. His predicament was to try and prove this massive body of water was more likely the source of the Nile than Lake Tanganyika. He managed to do this by observing the temperature that water boiled and proved that Lake Victoria was four thousand feet above sea level proving it was considerably higher than Lake Tanganyika and so more likely to be the source they were looking for.

Hateful Return to Britian

Speke returned to Kezeh and reported his findings. They returned to Zanzibar but then traveled back to the UK on separate ships after making a pact that neither would report their findings until the other had made it back safely. However, Speke made it back first and reported to the Royal Geological Society that he and he alone had found the source of the Nile. By the time Burton got back some two weeks later the news was old, and Speke had been given a new grant to go back to Lake Victoria and confirm the findings of the first expedition. Burton was infuriated by this betrayal and started a smear campaign against Speke. But it was too late as Speke headed back to Africa and Lake Victoria and managed to confirm his suspicions finding a river in the north of Lake Victoria near Jinja which is now known as the Victoria Nile.

Burton kept up his hate speech and with his considerable intellect and excellent oration was able to gather a following who believed that he should have been included in the accolades given to the first expedition rather than being a forgotten side note. Speke returned from his second successful expedition and was called a fraud for not including Burton. There was an uproar among the gentry and Burton demanded that they have a debate at the Royal Geological Society’s halls about the first expedition. Speke begrudgingly agreed, but he decided on the afternoon before the debate that he would clear his head and go shooting at a friend’s estate outside of London.

At the grouse shooting event, Speke became separated from the main party and was seen wandering through the woods. When the day was over, and everyone returned to the house Speke was missing. A search party was arranged and walked the woods into the night. At around midnight Speke’s body was found with the discharged shotgun lying beside him. No one knows what happened. There is a school of thought that suggests Speke was fearful of Burton and his speaking skills and that he would lose the debate and so be the laughingstock of the Royal Geological Society which would mean he would be cast out of Victorian society, and he could not face such ridicule so committed suicide. Or he tripped and the gun went off! But we will never know. Burton was heard to say, “It makes no difference who was holding the gun when it went off as every British gentleman will believe I shot Speke whatever the outcome.”

Burtons Final Days

Burton took the news very badly and spent the next few years drinking away his anger. He died on the 20th of October 1890 at the age of sixty-nine years. His wife and family wanted to have him buried at Westminster Abbey, but the abbey refused. The coffins of Sir Richard and Lady Burton are buried in a tomb in the shape of a Bedouin Tent in the cemetery of St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church Mortlake in southwest London.

This was the first major expedition to Africa. Livingstone and Stanley would come later in the century. These guys were real pioneers of the British Empire. Lake Victoria would become a focal point for most explorers and even Winston Churchill was sure it was the answer to controlling Egypt in the last days of the 18th Century. Lake Victoria is receiving a massive facelift at the moment; Kenya has built a brand-new port in Kisumu and hopes to link up the freight from Mombasa Port to Kisumu and beyond. This was first achieved with the Lunatic Express but that all fell apart due to infighting and corruption. But let’s hope this new resurgence will last and help develop this part of the country.

I write mainly about Sub-Saharan East Africa. If you are interested in my work there is loads more at stevebrakerbooks.com. You can also contact me for contract work in East Africa. Not only am I a writer, but I also help startups big and small take on the African unique marketplace!