Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure Read online

  Explorers of the Nile

  by the same author

  NON-FICTION

  Livingstone

  Baden-Powell

  Stanley

  Swimming with my Father

  FICTION

  Somewhere Beyond Reproach

  Cushing’s Crusade

  The Missionary’s Wife

  Deep Water

  Explorers of the Nile

  The Triumph and Tragedy of a

  Great Victorian Adventure

  TIM JEAL

  Yale

  UNIVERSITY PRESS

  New Haven & London

  First published 2011 in the United States by Yale University Press and in Great Britain by Faber and Faber Limited.

  Copyright © 2011 by Tim Jeal.

  All rights reserved.

  This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

  Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use.

  For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office).

  Typeset by Donald Sommerville.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011933872 ISBN 978-0-300-14935-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my daughters,

  Jessica, Lucy and Emily

  Contents

  Illustrations

  Plates

  Maps

  Introduction

  PART I Solving the Mystery

  1 Blood in God’s River

  2 A Great Misalliance

  3 A Rush of Men Like a Stormy Wind

  4 About a Rotten Person

  5 Everything Was to be Risked for This Prize

  6 Promises and Lies

  7 A Blackguard Business

  8 Our Adventurous Friend

  9 As Refulgent as the Sun

  10 An Arrow into the Heart

  11 Nothing Could Surpass It!

  12 The Nile is Settled

  13 A Hero’s Aberrations

  14 Death in the Afternoon

  15 The Doctor’s Dilemma

  16 The Glory of Our Prize

  17 A Trumpet Blown Loudly

  18 Almost in Sight of the End

  19 Never to Give Up the Search Until I Find Livingstone

  20 The Doctor’s Obedient and Devoted Servitor

  21 Threshing Out the Beaten Straw

  22 Nothing Earthly Will Make Me Give Up My Work

  23 Where Will You Be? Dead or Still Seeking the Nile?

  24 The Unknown Half of Africa Lies Before Me

  PART 2 The Consequences

  25 Shepherds of the World?

  26 Creating Equatoria

  27 An Unheard of Deed of Blood

  28 Pretensions on the Congo

  29 An Arabian Princess and a German Battle Squadron

  30 ‘Saving’ Emin Pasha and Uganda

  31 The Prime Minister’s Protectorate

  32 To Die for the Mahdi’s Cause

  33 Equatoria and the Tragedy of Southern Sudan

  34 A Sin not Theirs: The Tragedy of Northern Uganda

  CODA Lacking the Wand of an Enchanter

  APPENDIX Fifty Years of Books on the Search for the Nile’s Source

  Acknowledgements

  Sources

  Notes

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  An Arab-Swahili slave trader murders a sick slave, an engraving in The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa edited by Horace Waller

  Massacre of the Manyema women in Nyangwe, an engraving in The Last Journals

  ‘A large spear . . . stuck firmly into the soil’, an engraving in The Last Journals

  Speke’s escape from his captors, the frontispiece of Speke’s What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile

  Naval vessels at Zanzibar, an engraving in Stanley’s How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa [HIFL]

  Sidi Mubarak Bombay, a photograph at the Royal Geographical Society

  Burton’s drawings of the heads of Africans, in his The Lake Regions of Central Africa

  The Ladies’ Smoking Party, an engraving in Lake Regions

  Kazeh, an engraving in Lake Regions

  African village scenes, in Speke’s Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile [Journal]

  Sir Roderick Murchison. National Portrait Gallery, London

  John Blackwood, frontispiece of Annals of a Publishing House (Vol. III John Blackwood), ed. Mrs Gerald Porter (1898)

  Captain James Grant, in Harry Johnston’s The Nile Quest (1903)

  Speke and Grant present Rumanika with a rhinoceros’ head, an engraving in Speke’s Journal

  The road to the kabaka’s palace, an engraving in J. W. Harrison’s The Story of the Life of Mackay of Uganda

  Mutesa’s musicians, in Speke’s Journal

  Kahala and other young Baganda women, an engraving in Speke’s Journal

  Royal wife led to execution, an engraving in Speke’s Journal, based on a drawing by James Grant

  The Ripon Falls, an engraving in Speke’s Journal

  Grant and Speke at Kamrasi’s court, an engraving in Speke’s Journal

  Grant and Speke entertained by Florence and Baker, an engraving in the Baker family collection

  John and Katherine Petherick, an engraving used as the frontispiece to the Pethericks’ Travels in Central Africa

  Grant and Speke acclaimed at the RGS, illustration in the Illustrated London News 14 July 1863

  Murchison Falls, an engraving in Samuel Baker’s The Albert Nyanza

  John Shaw and William Farquhar, an engraving in Stanley’s HIFL

  The meeting of Stanley and Livingstone, an engraving in HIFL

  Livingstone sitting with Stanley outside his tembe in Ujiji, an engraving in HIFL

  Stanley and Livingstone at the mouth of the Rusizi, an engraving in HIFL

  John Kirk, a photograph in Richard Hall’s Stanley: An Adventurer Explored

  Livingstone travelling through marshes, an engraving in The Last Journals

  Alice Pike, a photograph in Richard Hall’s Stanley: An Adventurer Explored

  The Pocock brothers, an illustration in The Exploration Diaries of H. M. Stanley, ed. Richard Stanley and Alan Neame

  Stanley’s reception on Bumbireh, an engraving in Stanley’s Through the Dark Continent

  Tippu Tip, an engraving in Stanley’s In Darkest Africa

  Death of Kalulu, an engraving in Stanley’s Through the Dark Continent

  Livingstone’s remains carried through Southampton, as seen in the Illustrated London News 25 April 1874

  Baker Pasha, an engraving of a photograph in the Baker family collection

  Raising the flag at Gondokoro, an engraving in Baker’s Ismailia

  Kabarega’s return visit to Baker, an engraving in Baker’s Ismailia

  The ‘Battle of Masindi’, an engraving in Baker’s Ismailia

  The retreat to Fatiko, an engraving in Baker’s Ismailia

  Alexander Mackay, frontispiece of J. W. Harrison’s The Story of the Life of Mackay of U
ganda

  Muhammad Ahmad, the Mahdi

  King Leopold II of Belgium, a photograph in the Royal Museum of Central Africa

  De Brazza welcomed at Makoko’s court, from L’Illustration 8 July 1882

  SMS Adler in 1889. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, US Naval History and Heritage Command

  Emin Pasha, an engraving from a photograph in Stanley’s In Darkest Africa

  Steamship on the Upper Congo, an engraving in Stanley’s The Congo and the Founding of its Free State

  Lieutenant Stairs hit by an arrow, an engraving in In Darkest Africa

  Lord Salisbury

  Battle of Omdurman. ‘The opening charge of the Dervishes against the British Division’, in Omdurman by Philip Ziegler

  A romantic French view of Marchand and his mission, cover design of a French pamphlet Le Commandant Marchand á Travers l’Afrique by Michel Morphy

  Captain Henry Kelly, Royal Engineers, a photograph in Imperial Boundary Making: The Diary of Captain Kelly . . . ,ed. G. H. Blake

  Omar al-Bashir

  Milton Obote (© Getty Images)

  Mutesa II, kabaka of Buganda 413

  List of Plates

  A medieval reconstruction of Ptolemy’s map of the world, in The Discovery of the Nile by Gianni Guadalupi, from a map in the Vatican Library, Rome

  Richard Burton depicted as an Afghan peddler in Isabel

  Burton’s The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (1893).

  John Speke and James Grant at Mutesa’s court. From Speke’s Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.

  A naked Mutesa drawn by Speke in one of his sketchbooks, now at the Royal Geographical Society. RGS

  Speke portrayed standing at the Ripon Falls source, by the artist James Watney Wilson. RGS

  African birds drawn by Speke. RGS

  Samuel Baker and Florence von Sass in a storm on Lake Albert, an engraving from Samuel Baker’s The Albert Nyanza (1874).

  Obbo warriors perform a war dance, a water colour by Samuel

  Baker, in the Baker family collection.

  Baker’s sketch of himself in danger of being trampled by an elephant, in the Baker family collection.

  James Gordon Bennett Jr., editor of the New York Herald, by ‘Nemo’ (Constantine von Grimm), chromolithograph, Vanity Fair, 15 November 1884.

  Stanley and his men crossing the Makata swamp, a magic lantern slide in a private collection.

  Hats worn by Livingstone and Stanley at the time of their meeting, now in the RGS.

  Stanley watches a phalanx dance by Chief Mazamboni’s warriors, during the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, an illustration in Stanley’s In Darkest Africa (1890).

  Livingstone’s remains being carried to the coast by his men, a magic lantern slide from The Life and Work of David Livingstone, published by the London Missionary Society (1900).

  David Livingstone in 1866. London Missionary Society Richard Burton posing in Arab clothes, by Ernest Edwards, April 1865, in David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa. National Portrait Gallery

  Richard Burton in his tent in Somaliland, a photograph in Isabel

  Burton’s The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (1893).

  John Hanning Speke as a young officer in India, an oil painting reproduced in Harry Johnston’s The Nile Quest (1903).

  Speke before his great journey, a photograph in Mary Lovell’s A Rage to Live (1998).

  Speke’s memorial in Kensington Gardens.

  Samuel Baker in his African hunting attire, Baker family collection.

  Florence von Sass before her marriage to Samuel Baker, from Richard Hall’s Lovers on the Nile.

  The Royal Geographical Society outing during the meeting of the British Association in Bath, 1864, a photograph in the David Livingstone Centre.

  Henry Stanley aged twenty-eight, two years before he ‘found’ Dr Livingstone, a photograph in the estate of the late Quentin Keynes.

  Chuma and Susi, Dr Livingstone’s servants. London Missionary Society

  Some of Stanley’s principal Wangwana carriers on his great trans-Africa journey, a photograph in the Royal Museum of Central Africa.

  Karl Peters, the German explorer and imperialist. © Getty Images

  Princess Salme, sister of the Sultan of Zanzibar. Author’s Collection

  Captain T. M. S. Pasley RN. Author’s Collection

  James S. Jameson, a photograph in The Story of the Rear-Column of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, ed. Mrs J. S. Jameson (1890).

  Major Edmund Barttelot, a photograph in W. G. Barttelot’s The Life of Edmund Musgrave Barttelot (1890).

  Stanley (aged forty-six) and Anthony Swinburne, a photograph in the Royal Museum of Central Africa.

  Captain Frederick Lugard soon after claiming Uganda for Britain, a photograph in Margery Perham’s Lugard: The Years of Adventure 1858-1898 (1956).

  Kabarega of Bunyoro in old age, a photograph in Alan Moorehead’s The White Nile (1960).

  Henry Stanley in 1892 with his close friend Sir William Mackinnon of the Imperial British East Africa Company, a photograph in the Royal Museum of Central Africa.

  Major-General Sir Horatio Kitchener at the time of the battle of Omdurman, a photograph in Philip Magnus’s Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist (1958).

  Marchand’s emissaries approach Kitchener’s ship, a photograph in J. O. Udal’s The Nile in Darkness: A Flawed Unity 18631899 (2005).

  Commandant Jean-Baptiste Marchand, from an oil painting in the Musée de l’Armée, Paris.

  Sir Harold MacMichael, Britain’s top civil servant in Sudan 1926-33.

  List of Maps

  1. Livingstone’s Last Journeys, first stage, 1866-1871

  2. Burton’s Somali Expedition, 1854-1855

  3. The Journeys of Burton and Speke, 1856-1859, and of Speke and Grant, 1860-1863

  4. The Journey of Samuel Baker and Florence von Sass, 1862-1865

  5. The Journeys of Livingstone and Stanley, together and alone, 1866-1873

  6. Stanley’s trans-African Journey, 1874-1877

  Introduction

  In the middle of the nineteenth century the whereabouts of the Nile’s source was still the planet’s most elusive secret, as it had been since the days of the Pharaohs. When Alexander the Great was shown the temple of Ammon in Luxor, the first question he asked is said to have been: ‘What causes the Nile to rise?’ Indeed, a longing to find answers to the twin mysteries of the location of the river’s source, and why it always flooded in summer rather than in winter, had drawn Alexander to Egypt as powerfully as any military, commercial or political reason.1 From 30 BC Egypt was ruled by Rome. A Roman proverb – Facilius sit Nili caput invenire (‘It would be easier to find the source of the Nile’) was still current in nineteenth-century Europe as a handy epithet to hurl at impractical dreamers of all sorts. In AD 66, the Emperor Nero – surprisingly, a keen geographer – had sent an expedition upriver, led by two centurions, with instructions to find the legendary headwaters. Two thousand miles from the Mediterranean (halfway between the river’s mouth and its unknown source), the centurions were defeated by an immense swamp extending for hundreds of miles. This was the mosquito-infested Sudd, where under the blazing sun a maze of shifting channels was blocked by floating islands of papyrus and interlaced aquatic plants.

  Over the millennia the Nile mystery remained unsolved. How, people asked, could the river flow unfailingly every day of the year, for 1,200 miles through the largest and driest desert in the known world without being replenished by a single tributary? Small wonder that its annual inundation of the Nile Delta in the hottest month of the year caused awe and no little anxiety in case the mysterious sources might one day fail and Egypt perish. Yet, despite the passionate curiosity of successive generations, 2,000 years would pass without any significant new discovery being made on the White Nile. To the south of Latitude 9.5° North (the position of the Bahr el-Ghazal and the Sudd), mid-nineteenth-century maps would still sho
w the main channel dwindling away into a tracery of ever more hesitant dots.