John Hanning Speke to Lake Victoria by travelling south. They eventually, after tremendous hardships, such as being racked by fevers and held up by rulers for months on end, found Lake Albert and the Murchison Falls. Speke and Grant now returned to England where they arrived in June 1863 and were welcomed as genuine heroes. This did not last long in Speke’s case however; disputes with Burton, who was relentless in his criticisms and a very compelling public speaker and gifted writer, left Speke’s discoveries in less than an ideal light. Speke had also committed to write a book for John Blackwood which
University of Oxford Mecca and journeyed with John Hanning Speke as the first European explorers to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile; mountaineer Tom Bourdillon, member of the expedition to make the first ascent of Mount Everest; and Peter Fleming, adventurer and travel writer and elder brother of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond. The University of Oxford is the setting for numerous works of fiction. Oxford was mentioned in fiction as early as 1400 when Chaucer in his "Canterbury Tales" referred to a "Clerk [student] of Oxenford". By 1989, 533 novels based in Oxford