It was in the year 1849 at the expiration of the Punjaub campaign under Lord Gough where I had been actively engaged as a subaltern officer in the (so-called) fighting brigade of General Sir Colin Campbell's division of the army adding my mite to the four successive victorious actions-Ramnugger Sadoolapore Chillianwallah and Guzerat-that I first conceived the idea of exploring Central Equatorial Africa.

John Hanning Speke (1827 -1864) was an officer in the British Indian army, who made three voyages of exploration to Africa. He is best known for his search for the source of the Nile. In 1854 he made his first voyage, joining Richard Francis Burton on an expedition to Somalia. The trip went badly. Both men were wounded and returned to England to recover. In 1856 Speke and Burton made a voyage to East Africa to find the great lakes which were rumored to exist in the center of the continent. They also hoped to find the source of the Nile River. When they heard of a second great lake, Speke went...

John Hanning Speke (1827 64) was an officer in the British Indian Army, best known for his explorations of Africa. In the 1850s he embarked on two major expeditions there, the first, to Somalia, inspiring the second, to East Africa, during which he endeavoured to locate the source of the White Nile. This book of 1864 brings together his memoirs of both ventures, in which he draws connections between the two, and provides dramatic recollections of his endurance of captivity, attack, and tropical disease. Despite the obstacles he faced, on his second mission he identified Lake Victoria as the...

John Hanning Speke (1827 1864) was a British army officer and explorer, remembered for his expeditions in search of the source of the Nile and his disputes with Richard Burton on that subject. On an expedition begun in 1856 Burton and Speke reached Lake Tanganyika together, but Speke travelled on alone to Lake Victoria. He controversially gave lectures about the lakes in London in 1859, without awaiting Burton's return. Speke returned to Africa later that year, leading an expedition organised by the Royal Geographical Society, to explore Lake Victoria and investigate whether it really was the...