When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan’s army, and eventually traveled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without Bombay and men like him, who led, carried, and protected the expedition, neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. The day before they were to publicly debate,Speke shot himself. The two became venomous enemies, with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton, to Speke’s great envy. Burton disputed his claim, and Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove it. When they returned to England, Speke rushed to take credit, disparaging Burton. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness, and constant setbacks.

Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, passionate about hunting, Burton’s opposite in temperament and beliefs.įrom the start the two men clashed.

He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages, and was a decorated soldier. Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe – and extend their colonial empires. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt.

'A lean, fast-paced account of the almost absurdly dangerous quest by to solve the geographic riddle of their era.' - The New York Times Book Reviewįor millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery.

The harrowing story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time and its complicated legacy-from the New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the RepublicĪ BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE WASHINGTON POST.

River of the gods candice millard