John Hanning Speke were severely delayed and their supplies depleted by demands for gifts and passage fees by smaller local chieftains. After numerous months of delays Speke reached Lake Victoria on 28 July 1862, and then travelled on the west side around Lake Victoria but only seeing it from time to time; but on the north side of the lake, Speke found the Nile flowing out of it and discovered the Ripon Falls. Whilst being at the court of Muteesa I, the Kabaka (or King) of Buganda, the local kingdom, who treated Speke with kindness, he was given two girls of about 12
John Hanning Speke his death appeared in "The Times": An inquest concluded that the death was accidental, a conclusion supported by his only biographer Tim Jeal, though the idea of suicide has appealed to some. Bearing in mind, however, that the fatal wound was just below Speke's armpit, suicide seems most unlikely. Burton, however, could not set aside his own strong dislike of Speke and was vocal in spreading the idea of a suicide, claiming that Speke feared the debate. Speke was buried in Dowlish Wake, Somerset, five miles away from the ancestral home of the Speke family. In 1874–1877, Henry Stanley mounted