John Hanning Speke But Burton was too weak to make the trip and thus stayed in base camp when the main caravan halted again at Kazeh. Speke went on a 47-day side trip that was 452 miles up and down in which he took 34 men with Bombay and Mabruki as his captains and on 30 July 1858 became the first European to see Lake Victoria and the first to map it. It was this lake that eventually proved to be the source of the River Nile. However, much of the expedition's survey equipment had been lost at this point and thus vital
John Hanning Speke "race" comprised many tribes, including the Watusi (Tutsi). Speke described their physical appearances as having retaineddespite the hair-curling and skin-darkening effects of intermarriage"a high stamp of Asiatic feature, of which a marked characteristic is a bridged instead of bridgeless nose". Two species of African reptiles are named in his honor: Speke's hinge-back tortoise, "Kinixys spekii"; and Speke's sand lizard, "Heliobolus spekii". Two species of antelope are named in his honor; "Tragelaphus spekii" and "Gazella spekei". The film "Mountains of the Moon" (1990), starring Scottish actor Iain Glen as Speke, related the story of the Burton-Speke controversy, portrayed as having been