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
Mount Speke peaks: Kiyanja, Duwoni and Ingomwimbi. The fact is that for the Bakonjo the high Rwenzori is the home of Kitasamba, the god who resides at the high altitudes and cannot be accessed. Early European explorers visited the region in the search for the source of the Nile. This mountain was named after John Speke. While he never climbed this peak, Speke mapped the source of the White Nile in 1862. All the mountain in this region are named after similar early explorers. When Duke of the Abruzzi climbed this summit, he climbed all the other peaks in the Rwenzori range.