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
Orleigh Court of cards, to Major Edward Lee. After Edward Lee's death in 1819, the house passed to his nephew, the politician John Lee Lee (1802-1874), who did not live there but let it to his sister and her husband, William Speke. Born at Orleigh in 1827 was their son John Hanning Speke, the celebrated explorer who discovered the source of the River Nile. From 1845 the house was occupied by other tenants: In 1869 Orleigh was sold to Thomas Rogers, who employed the architect J. H. Hakewill to make extensive changes to the house, including the replacement of most of the