Nile game such as buffalo. Lake Victoria was first sighted by Europeans in 1858 when the British explorer John Hanning Speke reached its southern shore while traveling with Richard Francis Burton to explore central Africa and locate the great lakes. Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this "vast expanse of open water" for the first time, Speke named the lake after the then Queen of the United Kingdom. Burton, recovering from illness and resting further south on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, was outraged that Speke claimed to have proved his discovery to be the true
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile the best is that of Major (afterwards Sir) Francis Head, the author of a well-informed "Life of Bruce" (London, 1830). Wrote Head of Bruce's descriptions: Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773 is a multi-volume account by the Scottish traveller James Bruce (1730–94) of his journeys in the Horn of Africa, which includes an eye-witness account of Ethiopian history and culture, as well as a description of that country and the neighboring kingdom of Sennar and the Ottoman province of Habesh.