Source of the Nile
The Nile … the longest river in the world…the source of life for many civilizations throughout the ages. Yet for centuries the Nile’s source remained unknown. Hundreds of explorers died seeking to find its source. Today we might ask, “How hard can it be…why not just go up the river?” Yet this quest became legend. The source of the Blue Nile, in Lake Tana, Ethiopia, was not found until 1770 by James Bruce, and the source of the Nile was not found until 1861 at Lake Victoria in Uganda. Lake Victoria itself has tributaries from Western Kenya, Northern Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda, such as the Kagera.
The Legend
From the days of ancient Egypt the Nile has played a large part in mythology and legend. One reason was the Blue Nile created a narrow strip of fertile land and every year its flooding was necessary for the survival of the Egyptian people. At various points approximately 1 to 4 million people lived upon its banks. Because of the oasis it provided in the desert, many gods and goddesses were based of off creatures that lived on the Nile. It was also the chief Egyptian trading route.
Great superstition surrounded the Nile, this mysterious giver of life. In “A Hymn to the Nile,” written in about 2100 BCE, an ancient author wrote,
The Discovery
Even the actual discovery of the Nile is surrounded by mystery and suspicion. John Hanning Speke, an officer in the British Indian Army, made three explorations in Africa. In 1856, he accompanied Richard Francis Burton to find the source of the Nile. They discovered the Lake Tanganyika, and were about to go on to investigate another lake when Burton fell sick. Speke continued on alone, and discovered Lake Victoria. Speke then returned to England with the news of his discovery in the Spring of 1859. Burton, who was still recovering from his sickness, did not return to England until later. Burton became angry at Speke. He still believed that the source of the Nile was Lake Tanganyika, was jealous of Speke's fame, and upset that Speke had been chosen to head another expedition, with the Captain James Augustus Grant, to verify that the true source was Lake Victoria.
In 1860, with the assistance of Grant and Samuel Baker, Lake Victoria was verified to be the source of the Nile. The Ripon Falls were also discovered. In his fascinating "Journal of the Discovery of the Nile," among 18 chapters in which Speke spends pages on ordeals such as chasing a mule and conversations with the Queen in Uganda, Speke describes the Nile and later Lake Victoria,
"Here at last I stood on the brink of the Nile; most beautiful was the scene, nothing could surpass it! It was the very perfection of the kind of effect aimed at in a highly kept park; with a magnificent stream from 600 to 700 yards wide, dotted with islets and rocks, the former occupied by fishermen's huts, the latter by sterns and crocodiles basking in the sun..."
Speke returned again to England in 1863. Because Burton and others refused to believe that Lake Victoria was the source of the Nile, a debate was scheduled for September 16, 1864, so Speke and Burton could solve their disagreement. But, as fate would have it, Speke died mysteriously the day before from a hunting accident. Burton claimed it was suicide, but until today no one really knows. Speke had written, "That lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belief." And even though we have found the source of the Nile, the mystery of the "holy" Nile lives on.
Sources
For the complete "A Hymn to the Nile" see www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hymn-nile.html
For an online version of Speke's "Journal of the Discovery of the Nile" see http://www.capitalnet.com/~jcbyers/Speke/nile-intro.htm
http://www2.worldbook.com/features/features.asp?feature=ancient_egypt&page=html/myth.html&direct=yes
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/Nile_TheSearchfortheNile'sSource.asp