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
PS Speke "Speke" and her barges were used mainly to carry cotton for export from nearby plantations. When the railway operator's successor, the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation (EARH), completed its northern Uganda extension from Tororo to Pakwach it superseded the Victoria Nile ferry service. EARH withdrew "Speke", "Stanley" and "Grant" from service in 1962 and offered "Speke" for sale in September of that year. The track of the Busoga Railway was lifted in 1964. PS Speke PS "Speke" was a British stern wheel paddle steamer in Uganda. She was built for the Uganda Railway in 1910 to operate on Lake