Burton and Speke: The Search for the Nile

Before the interior, Burton led a Somali expedition, and Speke joined after asking to. The party landed at Berbera on 7 April 1855. Camped outside the town, the party was attacked at night by 200 spear-wielding Somalis. Lieutenant Stroyan was killed, Burton was wounded by a javelin through both cheeks, and Speke, wounded and captured, escaped. A muddle over whether Speke was retreating or charging, the sources say, laid the foundation of their later disputes.

Location precision: The sources place the camp outside Berbera without naming the spot; the pin marks the town.

The Royal Geographical Society funded a second Burton and Speke expedition in 1856, to the then utterly unknown lake regions. They set off from Zanzibar on 5 June 1857, having stayed with the British consul Atkins Hamerton. The caravan eventually numbered 132 people under the leader Said bin Salim. Fever and desertions began almost at once.

Location precision: The sources name Zanzibar, not Hamerton's residence or the departure point; the pin marks Stone Town.

Visitor guidance: Stone Town's seafront, with the 17th-century Omani Old Fort, is the place to start.

After over 600 miles on foot and donkey, the pair reached Kazeh on 7 November 1857, an Arab trading settlement. Founded in the 1850s near present-day Tabora, it was where they recovered before leaving for Ujiji on 14 December. Here the paths already diverged: Speke wanted to head north, sure of finding the Nile source, but Burton persisted west.

Location precision: Kazeh no longer exists as a named place; the pin marks Tabora, near its site.

On 13 February 1858 the expedition arrived at Lake Tanganyika. Burton was awestruck by the magnificent lake, but Speke, temporarily blinded, could not see it. They were the first Europeans to reach it, yet Burton was too ill to explore and they could get only small canoes. Ujiji is better known as the site of Stanley's meeting with Livingstone, and keeps a memorial and a modest museum.

Location precision: The sources say they first reached the shore at Ujiji; the pin marks the town.

Visitor guidance: Ujiji has the Dr. Livingstone Memorial and a small museum.

Burton, too weak to travel, stayed at Kazeh while Speke went on a 47-day side trip with 34 men. On 30 July 1858 he became the first European to see Lake Victoria, and renamed it after Queen Victoria. He saw only a small part of the southern end, yet estimated its height at 4000 feet from the boiling point of water. Burton was outraged at his claim, and a very public quarrel followed.

Location precision: Sources say only that Speke reached the southern shore; the pin marks Mwanza on that shore, not a documented spot.

Speke came back to settle it. After numerous months of delays he reached Lake Victoria again on 28 July 1862 and travelled round its west side, seeing the water only from time to time. On the north side of the lake he found the Nile flowing out of it and discovered the Ripon Falls. Later exploration bore him out: the Nile flows from Lake Victoria via Ripon Falls and Murchison Falls to Lake Albert, and on to Gondokoro.

Location precision: The sources say only that the falls lie where the Nile leaves the lake's northern shore; the pin marks the Source of the Nile site at Jinja.

The quarrel was meant to end in public. A debate between Speke and Burton was planned before the geographical section of the British Association in Bath on 16 September 1864. It never took place: Speke had died the previous afternoon from a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound while out shooting at Neston Park in Wiltshire.

Location precision: The sources name the city, not the meeting hall; the pin marks Bath.