Burton and Speke (novel) incompetent, unable even to learn how to use simple measuring devices, vital to serious exploration. Despite these obvious drawbacks however, it is Speke who eventually discovers Lake Victoria as the source of the Nile, due to Burton falling seriously ill with malaria and having to be left behind in an Arab trading camp. Here their mutual antipathy turns to bitter enmity when Speke, breaking his word to Burton, claims sole credit for the discovery. Unfortunately for Speke his lack of accurate readings and sloppy map making skills lead the scientific world to doubt his word. Speke dies from a self-inflicted
Nile (TV series) of discovering where the Nile was born, but for centuries the river kept its secrets close. The obsession grew and by the mid-19th century some were prepared to risk their lives to be the first to discover the source of the Nile. Nomads first settled along the banks of the Nile around 5000 BC and replenished by annual floodwaters grew into the Ancient Egyptian civilisation but the source of the miraculous waters remained a mystery to them. The Royal Geographical Society dispatched Richard Burton and John Speke to Lake Tanganyika to find the source in 1857 but unable to complete