John Hanning Speke unjustifiably incited by Speke's publisher to stimulate book sales. John Hanning Speke John Hanning Speke (4 May 1827 – 15 September 1864) was an English explorer and officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first European to reach Lake Victoria. He is also known for propounding the Hamitic hypothesis in 1863, in which he supposed that the Tutsi ethnic group were descendants of the biblical figure Ham, and had lighter skin and more Hamitic features than the Bantu-featured
Burton and Speke (novel) Burton and Speke (novel) Burton and Speke is a 1982 historical novel by William Harrison recounting the 1857 expedition of the search for the source of the Nile by the famous Victorian explorer, linguist and anthropologist Sir Richard Burton and English aristocrat and amateur hunter John Hanning Speke. The book was adapted for film in 1990 by Harrison and director Bob Rafelson. Although both Burton and Speke were former military officers the expedition they agreed to undertake together was, according to the author, fated to be disastrous for them both, despite their ultimate success. They had no common bond, apart