Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
Episode Stats
Summary
In the 19th century, the source of the Nile River remained one of the greatest mysteries of geographic exploration. The story of how the British eventually found it is one of adventure, danger and bravery, but also of arrogance, envy and resentment. Here to offer some snapshots from this dramatic expedition is Candice Millard, author of River of the Gods.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast in the 19th century
00:00:11.860
the source of the nile river remained one of the greatest mysteries of geographic exploration
00:00:15.840
the story of how the british eventually found it is one of adventure danger and bravery but also
00:00:20.460
of arrogance envy and resentment here to offer some snapshots from this dramatic expedition is
00:00:25.300
candace millard author of river of the gods genius courage and betrayal in the search for the source
00:00:30.520
of the nile today on the show candace shares how two men who are very much opposites richard francis
00:00:34.640
burton and john hanning speak venture together on two years-long expeditions to locate the source the
00:00:39.500
longest and most legendary river in the world the harrowing obstacles they faced in their quest and
00:00:43.660
how their partnership devolved into a bitter rivalry along the way we discuss what made burton such a
00:00:47.900
compelling character why remember his name but not speaks and the african guide who is the unheralded
00:00:52.680
hero and the achievements of both men after the show is over check out our show notes at awim.is
00:00:57.840
all right candace millard welcome back to the show thanks so much for having me so you got a new book
00:01:15.440
out called river of the gods it's all about the exploration for the source of the nile river
00:01:21.940
how did you discover this story and when did you realize there there might be a bigger story here
00:01:26.660
besides just geographic exploration i first heard this basic story about 20 years ago and i was just
00:01:33.140
fascinated by these two extremely different men and the story of their friendship and the betrayal of
00:01:38.860
that friendship and it stayed with me all these years i've been working at national geographic at that
00:01:43.960
time in the meantime written you know different books but i kept coming back to the story but
00:01:49.840
i didn't want to just tell another story about two europeans going into africa and quote-unquote
00:01:57.580
discovering something i wanted to really understand how these expeditions worked and why there was this
00:02:05.820
incredible fascination with this part of the world and when i was doing some research i found
00:02:10.660
city mubarak bombay who became the the heart and really the hero of the story and then i was hooked
00:02:17.920
yeah what i loved about this story is that there's stories within the story there's like lots of
00:02:22.580
stories and you explore them all it's sort of like a river right you find these little tributaries and
00:02:27.440
you you go off and you you see it gives you a bigger picture of what was going on yeah that's true and
00:02:32.540
that always happens with the best story so it takes me a lot of time a lot of research before i even
00:02:38.940
commit to writing a book on a on a certain subject and it has to have those many layers and this
00:02:44.880
certainly did okay so the the exploration for the source of the nile was going on like 1830s 1840s
00:02:52.140
1850s what was going on in europe at the time that kick-started it was like there was an obsession
00:02:58.680
like there was an obsession in discovering the source of the nile what what happened that's right so it
00:03:04.540
used to be that europeans were obsessed with rome and greece and they taught their children and the
00:03:11.100
priests and everyone was steeped in learning those languages and learning that history but then
00:03:15.420
at the very end of the 1700s and 1798 the french were in alexandria and they found the rosetta stone
00:03:25.060
and then the they were fighting with britain at that time britain wanted it britain all every european
00:03:31.800
country then was obsessed with this this even older and even richer civilization and so it just set
00:03:40.360
off this frenzy and art and architecture and fashion and everyone was fascinated with egypt as
00:03:46.620
really we still are today and so you can't have egypt without the nile right the longest most storied
00:03:53.300
river in the world and but but but people had been trying to find the source of the nile for thousands of
00:04:00.040
years you know ancient philosophers egyptian kings but they kept trying to find it by going by ascending
00:04:07.320
the river starting at the mediterranean sea and then going south but they quickly hit all these swamps
00:04:12.860
and things and they never got anywhere near so it was still this incredible mystery really one of the
00:04:18.920
greatest mysteries in the history of human exploration and so it's finally in the 1830s with
00:04:26.040
the royal geographical society getting involved they thought okay this is our moment we're going to try to
00:04:31.260
find it and was there like national pride at stake i mean we're like the french and the british
00:04:35.420
fighting each other on this absolutely absolutely everyone wanted they wanted the the the cultural
00:04:43.080
claim right they wanted they it was all about taking right taking effort taking the land taking the
00:04:49.700
history and the culture and you know then having the bragging rights to that and so so they were all
00:04:57.000
racing each other and so that was something that they were thinking about not only the dangers that
00:05:02.580
they would face and that and being able to solve this ancient mystery but also getting there first
00:05:07.980
okay so one of the individuals that played a big role in a european discovering the source of the nile
00:05:14.120
was richard francis burton this guy you couldn't make this guy up um tell us about his life before he
00:05:22.260
went on this expedition to start looking for the source of the nile like what was his life like what was
00:05:26.640
he's doing what was his personality like give kind of a thumbnail sketch of him yeah he was one of
00:05:31.940
these incredibly brilliant fascinating very deeply flawed characters so he was born in england but he
00:05:40.860
was always his whole life considered an outsider because he before he was a year old he moved to france
00:05:47.980
and his father moved him and his brother and sister from country to country he was in italy he was in
00:05:54.300
spain he was in greece and moving and moving each year he moved 13 times before he was 18 years old
00:06:00.140
and each point he would pick up the language and pick up the culture he was just a sponge but he also
00:06:06.560
grew up to be very an angry angry kid he was always fighting he was fighting at school he was fighting with
00:06:12.300
his tutors he was just fighting for his place in the world he felt like he really didn't fit in anywhere
00:06:17.500
but he again was brilliant i mean he he ended up writing dozens of books poetry essays translations
00:06:26.200
books about his travels he he ended up speaking more than 25 different languages plus another several
00:06:34.060
dialects he became the first englishman to enter mecca disguised as a muslim because his arabic was so
00:06:41.740
good and he knew the muslim religion so well he he could recite a quarter of the quran by heart but he
00:06:48.980
was one of these people who studied and was fascinated by every culture and every religion but respected
00:06:55.420
none yeah he was uh deeply not religious right and yeah but that was amazing like the story of him
00:07:02.240
sneaking into mecca was was crazy uh that he was able to do that as a european right right and you know
00:07:08.740
again again again he he was fascinated with islam and and studied a lot but obviously it's a forbidden
00:07:15.840
city for a reason and and he you know this this this trip was acknowledging that what was sort of most
00:07:22.320
sacred to this religion and completely disrespecting it but that was his mo i mean he was kind of a serial
00:07:29.560
and you know equal opportunity offender he just kind of didn't care and so that's really again one of the
00:07:36.880
things that made him an outsider he was also fascinated by sexual practices in every single
00:07:42.920
culture and he wrote about those as well which as you might imagine was very alarming to british victorians
00:07:49.040
so and and and another thing about him he you know britons would often say he doesn't even look british
00:07:55.320
you know he's got this black hair and these black mesmerizing eyes and even his teeth people wrote
00:08:02.060
about his teeth bram stoker who would go on to write dracula met burton before he wrote dracula and
00:08:09.160
was mesmerized by him he was just obsessed with him and and reading his descriptions are fascinating
00:08:14.920
and he even writes about watching burton as he's talking and looking at his teeth that gleamed like a
00:08:22.800
dagger so many people think he might have been an inspiration for dracula okay so when did burton
00:08:28.340
get the idea that he would start hunting for the source of the nile so after he um went to mecca he
00:08:34.920
he was always he always sort of fell into this depression after he had some great triumph so
00:08:41.060
unlike most people who who they just want to kind of coast on that afterglow right of some of some
00:08:47.420
great success burton always fell into a depression because he was happiest and most energized when he had
00:08:54.400
a challenge he needed something to really challenge him and again this was the heart and soul of
00:08:59.880
exploration this is the mystery everyone wanted to solve at that time so of course he thought
00:09:04.660
no one better than himself and he already had a relationship with the royal geographical society
00:09:09.740
they've been very interested in his trip to mecca and even though again he's this outsider and they
00:09:14.780
they kind of hold him at arm's length he obviously was the most experienced guy the the most obvious
00:09:21.720
choice to lead an expedition to search for the source of the nile okay so burton starts he gets
00:09:27.100
pointed for the job like you're going to be the guy so he starts putting together a team
00:09:30.640
it was sort of like it reminded me of uh uh what's the george clooney movie oceans 11 right he's trying
00:09:36.420
to wait it's a heist here right um and he he started picking these guys because he knew they were good at
00:09:41.100
these different things he ended up picking this one guy called john hanning speak that would end up being
00:09:47.560
a source of a lot of just trouble for the rest of his life how did this guy speak end up on burton's
00:09:52.680
team and then tell us about speak so burton had chosen three men he knew well and and really respected
00:10:00.360
they were highly skilled and and he trusted them and he liked them personally and so he went to
00:10:07.060
aidan which is right across he was going to begin in somaliland so he went to aidan where there was a
00:10:12.520
british outpost and was you know preparing and he was waiting for for one more man from his team
00:10:18.300
and the the boat that was supposed to bring that man instead brought news of the of his death and
00:10:24.260
burton's really devastated of somebody he really cared about and and he doesn't know he's like here
00:10:29.860
we're ready we've raised this money we've been given this incredible opportunity and we don't have
00:10:35.140
this other guy well john hanning speak was so he was burton's opposite in every way he was blonde
00:10:42.100
and blue-eyed he was born into the aristocracy he was a lieutenant in the british army he was in india
00:10:49.100
at that time he loved to hunt and so he was on leave from the army and he wanted to go to africa to
00:10:56.160
hunt he wanted to go into to somalia and when he got to aidan the the person in the british consul who
00:11:02.620
was there refused to let him go he said it's too dangerous but he kept trying and kept trying and
00:11:07.960
the guy said okay finally just leave me alone why don't you talk to burton maybe he'll let you go on
00:11:13.440
this expedition and he talked to burton speak did and burton had real hesitations you know first of all
00:11:20.820
he was concerned because speak didn't have any knowledge of the people in east africa their traditions
00:11:28.360
or language he didn't speak any language he spoke a little anglo hindustani but that was it and he
00:11:34.280
didn't seem to have any interest in it either he just wanted to hunt but burton felt sorry for him
00:11:40.920
you know he thought you know this guy is going to go and he's going to die he's going to be killed he's
00:11:45.420
not going to survive i'll give him a chance and so he said okay you can come with us let's just get
00:11:51.620
our bearings here this is about 18 what year is this 1850 yeah this is 1854 when they met 1854
00:11:58.340
speak he's also a young guy he's like in his 20s right that's right so he's about six years younger
00:12:04.400
than burton burton's in his 30s and and speaks in his 20s yeah and so burton he kind of said like i you
00:12:10.980
know i kind of i didn't want to have him on there but you said he's i felt sorry for him i'll let him
00:12:16.140
come along when did burton realize that speak was going to was going to be a liability for him
00:12:22.140
he didn't really realize for a long time you know burton's one of these people i think often in
00:12:28.600
history when you have somebody who's really extraordinarily i mean he's sort of genius level
00:12:34.660
extraordinarily smart extraordinarily skilled and accomplished he attracts envy that they're not
00:12:41.320
really aware of and that could be an extremely extremely dangerous thing because admiration can
00:12:47.300
quickly turn to envy can quickly turn to resentment can quickly turn to hate and that's what happened
00:12:53.120
here you know burton was kind of not paying attention to speak which speak hated more than anything you
00:12:58.740
know speak on the outside seems sort of modest and quiet but inside he really burned with this
00:13:05.580
ambition and he all along wanted to be the leader of the of the expedition not have have burton be the
00:13:12.960
leader he wanted to lead it he wanted the the glory and the accomplishment but burton was unaware of it he
00:13:19.820
was focused on this expedition and this and this challenge ahead of him and so it would take years and
00:13:27.260
many things along the way sort of built up offenses that he he didn't realize that he had caused
00:13:34.080
and speaks kind of keeping tally and it doesn't come out until much later so they the expedition
00:13:40.720
they it happened in phases so this first expedition they went on something happened that really really
00:13:46.760
started sowing the resentment with speak they've almost they almost both died tell us about this
00:13:52.080
experience i mean you do such a great job describing it but kind of give us a picture like what happened
00:13:56.760
in this this attack and then how did that sort of really sow the seeds for this resentment that speak
00:14:02.200
had against burton so they were going to begin in somalia and then set out into the interior of east
00:14:10.440
africa it was believed that there there might be some enormous sort of inland sea and so they started
00:14:17.540
in berber right on the coast and again you know these are people that this wider story is one of sort
00:14:25.620
of arrogance and ignorance these are people going into a land to again quote unquote discover something
00:14:31.360
where people have lived for a hundred thousand or more years right and millions of people and of
00:14:37.420
course these people are going to defend themselves so it's going to be dangerous and so one night they're
00:14:43.280
they're just in their tents they're sleeping and they are attacked by hundreds of somali and one of
00:14:50.300
the men is killed again one of one of burton's good friends speak is stabbed 11 times and burton has a
00:14:59.520
javelin thrust through his jaw from cheek to cheek which leaves this you know long jagged scar on his
00:15:07.360
face for the rest of his life but in the midst of this attack at one point speak starts to leave the
00:15:15.020
tent and then and then he steps back and burton just sort of carelessly says don't step back they'll
00:15:21.260
think you that you're retreating and but to to speak this is the worst thing anyone could say to him
00:15:26.880
because he thinks in his mind that burton is calling him a coward and that he takes great pride in being
00:15:33.040
incredibly tough incredibly brave and so he is furious but he doesn't say anything to burton and burton has
00:15:41.400
no idea i mean he's either all fighting for their for their lives and this ends the expedition and they
00:15:47.460
have to go back to england to regroup and again burton has no idea but but speak is is enraged and
00:15:56.660
he's he's holding this sort of in his heart against burton yeah so they go back to to london lick their
00:16:03.920
wounds and trying to figure out regroup and plan again yeah as you said during this time speak really
00:16:08.540
started nurturing his resentment towards burton he tried to change the story of what happened and kind of
00:16:13.700
saying yeah i was i was the guy burton he wasn't doing anything
00:16:18.820
right right he's saying you know he's talking about the orders that he gave and the decisions
00:16:25.300
that he made and and yeah this becomes a theme but again burton is completely unaware of it so
00:16:31.460
then the crimean war by that time is going on and they both go to take part to to a limited degree
00:16:38.000
in the crimean war and then burton decides i'm going to go back i'm going to go back
00:16:43.700
to east africa and the royal geographical society is going to fund another expedition for him and he
00:16:49.800
needs a second in command and against his best judgment even though again he is completely clueless
00:16:56.940
about how speak feels about him but he knows that they don't really get along that well and that speak
00:17:04.400
doesn't really have as many skills as he thinks he should but he says he he's like look he nearly died
00:17:10.280
the last time we all lost a lot of our our investment financial investment as well
00:17:16.000
um he felt bad about that so he said you know he invited him to come along and speak accepted
00:17:21.420
well during this interlude period burton had a romance this is another one of those cool little
00:17:27.220
stories that happened it is it was a romantic romance like capital r romantic with this woman named
00:17:34.380
isabel arendel tell us about the relationship and because this i thought this was really kind of it
00:17:39.480
really spoke to how like so that romantic period that people were experiencing in europe so tell us
00:17:45.520
about that relationship well you know it's interesting it seems like burton always attracted
00:17:50.660
to him people who are his complete opposite so isabel was as well um in a different way so isabel was
00:17:58.080
also born into the aristocracy but the she was catholic and so while burton had this sort of
00:18:04.200
nomads you know growing up he moving from place to place he was kind of on his own kind of raised
00:18:10.760
himself um she was born to this very very strict and controlling world where you know literally she
00:18:19.300
got to see her parents in the evening standing next to them to say good night you know it was nannies
00:18:25.240
and boarding schools and but and very controlled and her mother especially was extremely controlling
00:18:32.300
and wanted to choose who isabel would marry but isabel dreamed of a completely different life you know
00:18:41.000
she wanted adventure she wanted freedom which you just couldn't have as a victorian woman
00:18:47.660
and great britain and so she said that she wanted to be a man she said i wish i were a man but if i
00:18:56.300
can't be a man i want to be richard burton's wife so she she meets him when she's just 19 years old it's
00:19:03.700
her first trip outside of england and they meet in europe and she is immediately captivated by him he's
00:19:11.000
sort of everything she wishes she could be right he has this incredibly wild and adventurous life
00:19:17.260
and he looks dangerous and exciting and so she immediately falls in love with him but she's he's
00:19:24.880
10 years older than than she is and obviously swept up in this world in the in the in all of his own
00:19:31.900
personal ambitions and so they kind of meet again and again over over six years again and again
00:19:38.980
until finally he comes back and from africa and he proposes to her and it's everything she could
00:19:47.700
possibly dream of the only problem is her mother says absolutely not literally any man in the universe
00:19:55.260
but richard burton because he's such a controversial figure and he has no money and he has no family name
00:20:03.120
and so he's he is everything isabel wants and everything her mother does not no i loved isabel
00:20:09.620
i loved she was um she started she took fencing lessons and they're like why are you taking fencing
00:20:13.560
lessons like well i gotta know how to defend myself when i'm with richard on adventures i liked it a lot
00:20:18.960
and then what what drew burton to her you know i think well for one thing i mean i she was beautiful
00:20:25.040
she was young and she was willing to live this really crazy life that not many victorian women
00:20:33.300
would want you know i mean it was not an easy life and again he really didn't have any money he didn't
00:20:39.920
really have any obvious way to support them certainly not in the way that she had become accustomed to
00:20:45.620
but she was also completely obsessed with him you know she was absolutely devoted to him so what was
00:20:52.660
important to her was her religion and richard burton and she would do anything for him and so she
00:20:59.060
like you said she learned how to fence she she learned how to cook she learned how to edit because that he
00:21:06.860
wanted you know someone who could edit all of his manuscripts and things and she also became an
00:21:12.680
incredibly gifted writer she was really she brought she ended up writing some of her own books and she
00:21:18.560
and of course she wrote an autobiography or a i'm sorry a biography of of her husband which is
00:21:25.360
fascinating and beautifully written we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors
00:21:30.600
and now back to the show okay so uh he has this romance with with isabel he goes on the second
00:21:40.100
expedition to look for the source denial he brings along speak again unaware that speak is just just
00:21:46.220
harboring this resentment towards them tell us you mentioned a character that i i just i fell in
00:21:51.120
love with when i was reading about it bombay this bombay like came in clutch all the time during their
00:21:57.200
expeditions tell us about him so city mubarak bombay had been kidnapped as a child from his village in east
00:22:05.640
africa and dragged to the coast um taken to zanzibar where he'd been sold for cloth and the infamous slave
00:22:13.840
markets there and he had been taken to western india where he had lived enslaved for 20 years
00:22:21.520
until the man who owned him died and he was given his freedom and he made his way back to east africa
00:22:28.320
and he met burton and speak there so when burton and speak go it's now 1856 they're on their expedition
00:22:36.120
they're going to try again and they meet they're they're hiring porters and guides and things and they
00:22:42.720
meet city mubarak bombay and it's really interesting to me because both men immediately knew if they
00:22:49.500
didn't hire anyone else they had to hire bombay and you know he he spoke many languages he was incredibly
00:22:57.280
hard-working incredibly trustworthy he was very cheerful and all everything that he did but what's most
00:23:06.100
astonishing to me is that even after everything that he had endured all the loss all the this
00:23:13.240
unbelievable tragedy that he had survived he had the softest of hearts you know he was incredibly kind
00:23:21.720
incredibly generous and that is obvious you know it was obvious to these men the moment they met him
00:23:29.520
and this ended up being true and in expedition after expedition after expedition he would spend his life
00:23:35.440
helping to map his part of the world and yeah he he quickly became the heart and really the hero of
00:23:43.680
this expedition yeah one of the problems that burton had and speak had is like sometimes the porters
00:23:49.680
just abandoned they just like in the middle leave but bombay never did and also bombay did a great job
00:23:55.380
of sort of i guess managing the relationships between the porters and burton and speak yeah he did and and
00:24:02.540
look it's understandable why these men would desert the expedition you know is so they were you know
00:24:09.680
incredible burton and speak nearly died multiple times and it was never clear like how how they were
00:24:16.300
going to pay their porters and they never had enough porters they never had enough donkeys and the
00:24:22.260
donkeys were always running off too or dying and they had so much equipment and they you know people have
00:24:28.980
to understand i mean this these are vast expanses that they're crossing so they would spend years
00:24:35.220
there and they would cross thousands of miles and it was incredibly varied terrain and they were you know
00:24:43.160
at one point burton has such severe malaria he was paralyzed he could not walk for nearly a year
00:24:50.160
and so they had to carry him with with everything else too both men and many of the and and sometimes
00:24:57.220
bombay and some of the other people they often would be blinded they would get infections and
00:25:01.840
things were for months they they couldn't see what they're trying to go through so it's it's and again
00:25:08.020
they're going through land that no one has invited them into and it's potentially dangerous people don't
00:25:15.260
know i mean it could be immediately dangerous and it certainly was in the long term very very dangerous
00:25:19.900
for these people on this land so um it's a difficult difficult expedition and so it's no wonder people left
00:25:28.240
right yeah that's the when i read it's like this sounds awful i don't know why anyone would want to
00:25:32.400
go explore in the 19th century i mean as you said like most of the time they were just like they were
00:25:37.380
sick pretty much all both burton like everyone was sick burton went paralyzed uh speak lost his vision
00:25:43.000
he also lost his hearing he got a bug stuck in his ear right right yeah that was a horrible it was just
00:25:50.060
one of these crazy things where he's one night there's a huge storm and it blows down his tent
00:25:57.200
and so and it's pitch black so he lights a candle to try to set his tent back up but it tracks this
00:26:03.300
horde of beetles all these beetles descend on him and fill the tent and he's flailing around trying to get
00:26:10.560
rid of them and he can't and so he finally gives gives up and he lies down to just try to sleep
00:26:16.500
and he feels one of the beetles climbing into his ear and he can't get it out and it just keeps
00:26:22.680
burrowing deeper and deeper and deeper and you know he tries everything he can think of he tries like
00:26:27.980
butter and oil and nothing is working and so finally out of desperation he takes a pen knife
00:26:35.040
and he jabs it into his ear and he he kills the beetle and like for weeks after bits of the beetle
00:26:43.520
like a wing or a leg you know comes out in his in his earwax but unfortunately he also deafens himself
00:26:50.400
in that ear for the rest of his life okay so they're on this exploration they finally arrive to
00:26:56.260
this large lake it's lake tell me how it's pronunciation tanganica yes tanganica tanganica
00:27:02.600
um and burton thought hey this is it this could i think this is the source of the nile but he
00:27:07.460
discovered it wasn't when did he figure out that this wasn't the source well not for a while i mean
00:27:12.280
he still held on hope for a long time so the lake tanganica is one of the largest and deepest lakes in
00:27:20.760
the world it's absolutely enormous i was i was on this lake when i did research for this book and
00:27:26.380
you feel like you're an on an ocean it's just it's it's it's really it's it's sort of narrow and very
00:27:34.340
very long and i was on it one night when there had been a big storm and the water was incredibly rough
00:27:41.880
and we were just in an open wooden boat you know and we were tipping like insane like almost
00:27:49.060
completely tipping over many many times and it's also filled with crocodiles so i was
00:27:54.020
terrified but it did seem like this and it's in the right area you know it's it's it's in
00:27:59.900
what is today um western tanzania and as a side note it's also the the site of gombe which is jane
00:28:07.240
goodall's research institute there on the lake but um but so the problem is they got there they didn't
00:28:14.220
have boats they are trying to find um boats that they could um rent or borrow and they were they're
00:28:20.360
sicker and sicker and they're running out of supplies and finally they just realized they can't stay
00:28:25.540
any longer they they they have to start back for the coast but they haven't had a chance to
00:28:31.520
circumnavigate it they haven't chance to do run all the scientific tests that they need to run and
00:28:37.140
they haven't seen they haven't you know gotten to they think it's going to be in the northern reaches
00:28:41.960
and they haven't been able to really get there to see if you know a nile-sized river is running out
00:28:47.660
well at this point too speak decided you know burton was sick he kind of need to hold up for a little
00:28:53.080
bit and recover so speak said hey i'm going to go split off and go check something else out
00:28:56.980
why did speak decide to do that so at first as i said they had thought that there was was one enormous
00:29:04.720
lake in the middle of east africa but when they get there and they start talking to people who
00:29:09.920
live there and they find out actually there are three enormous lakes and they talk to a guy who's
00:29:16.700
like you know if you really want to see a big lake you should go north and that is the nyanza and so
00:29:24.380
speak really wants to do that but burton again is still he he at this point he's still paralyzed he's
00:29:30.460
really ill he thinks they don't have enough supplies for it and he says let's just wait we'll get back to
00:29:36.680
the coast we'll regroup and then we'll and then we'll try and speak says you know what when we're
00:29:42.600
in they're in um kaze which is now tabora which was this big sort of trading post he says while
00:29:48.260
we're here why don't you recover work on things you know they're all everything was falling apart
00:29:53.240
like their clothes were in shreds everything's falling apart at this point it's like why don't
00:29:56.840
you work on that and i'll take bombay because he didn't want to go anywhere without bombay
00:30:00.720
and a smaller legion and i'll see if i can go to this this nyanza and burton is kind of annoyed
00:30:08.180
with him at this point anyway and he's like great why don't you do that but it was it would turn out
00:30:13.560
to be the worst mistake of his life because speak did go to the nyanza and the nyanza is the source
00:30:20.360
of the white nile but the thing is okay speak was convinced that what was it but he really didn't know
00:30:26.140
no no he was only there for a couple of days he didn't get anywhere near the north he was in the
00:30:32.740
southern part and it i mean this this this lake it's the it's the largest lake in africa it's the
00:30:39.320
second largest freshwater lake in the world it's absolutely mind-bendingly enormous and he wasn't
00:30:46.180
anywhere near the northern reaches which is where the nile comes out of it but he just said he had a
00:30:51.140
feeling he just knew that this was a source and so part of it is gumption you know he did go part of
00:30:58.320
it is just luck it just turned out that he was right but he he had absolutely no proof it's okay
00:31:04.440
they so speaks like yeah i found it uh burton's like i don't know maybe you don't have any proof about it
00:31:10.360
they go home and then speak started doing these maneuvers to make sure that he got sole credit for
00:31:16.420
discovering the source of denial like what did what what did he do that's right so they get back
00:31:21.700
to zanzibar and speak is really really eager to get back to england and burton's still recovering
00:31:28.480
and speak says okay don't worry i'll go on without you i'll go back to london but don't worry i won't
00:31:35.820
talk to anybody until you can join me and so burton says okay great i'll meet you there as soon as i
00:31:41.540
can well speak decides instead as soon as he gets to london like the very next day he goes to see
00:31:49.400
the head the president of the royal geographical society and he tells him that he believes he's
00:31:55.080
found the source of the nile and this guy believes him and really likes speak again speak is sort of
00:32:01.980
and this he doesn't have any children murchison is his name and he sort of looks on speak very
00:32:07.860
affectionately and is really impressed with what he's done and he says we have to send you back
00:32:13.420
as commander of your own expedition which is everything that speak has always wanted so burton
00:32:19.600
gets back a few weeks later and is like completely bewildered and shocked by what has happened you know
00:32:27.540
he he realizes that oh speak is not my friend i'm not his mentor he's my rival he just had he just it
00:32:36.900
hadn't even occurred to him but now everything's been taken away so so speak is going to be given
00:32:43.780
the next expedition and burton doesn't have one so so he doesn't have any way to go back and try to
00:32:51.340
try to discover the source of the nile something he had been trying with everything he had to do for
00:32:57.380
years and during this time burton's reputation just kind of plummeted like he no one wanted anything
00:33:03.900
to do with him that's right so he was just he just kind of spun deeper and deeper into he as he sort
00:33:10.900
of then realizes how speak feels about him and and then yeah he the rural geographical society kind of
00:33:19.000
drops him he's just an outcast and he's bitter and he's angry and sort of and again he's at his best
00:33:27.340
when he has a challenge when he has something he wants to solve or wants to accomplish something big
00:33:33.720
and he had and that had been taken away from him all right so speak goes back to lake uh what was the
00:33:39.940
name the nancy the nyanza nyanza he names it lake victoria that's what it's we know it now uh how did
00:33:46.000
that expedition go without burton so it was you know beck had always been criticizing burton first just
00:33:53.320
sort of to himself and then to you know his family members and then sort of to a wider array of people
00:34:00.200
criticizing burton at every point and criticizing his leadership skills now speak finds that he's in
00:34:07.240
charge and he has to make all these very difficult decisions and the same things happen to him they
00:34:13.240
they get there so the first person he knows he has to have with him is bombay and bombay is absolutely
00:34:19.220
willing and ready to go and then he takes a man named james grant and james grant is just again
00:34:27.640
it's a story of complete opposites he speaks complete opposites so he he's a really good guy
00:34:33.260
very genuinely modest happy for speak to have the limelight and just kind of waiting um to to help
00:34:42.060
however he could but again quickly they go in there are desertions they're starving but they
00:34:49.900
are able to make it to the northern reaches of the nyanza and again they don't really have the proof
00:34:56.000
that they need they don't aren't able to spend enough time they they don't have all the scientific
00:35:01.300
measurements but speak is even more than ever convinced that this is the source okay so he's
00:35:08.360
convinced and he's building up his brand basically in england like i'm the guy who discovered the
00:35:13.800
source of the nile and a lot most of the scientists and the researchers they they bought into like yeah
00:35:18.300
this guy did it but then there came a point when they started to realize that speak was all hat and
00:35:24.400
no cattle what happened like what what sounded what kind of led to his downfall when people started
00:35:29.760
to realize this guy isn't really what he says he is well he just became he's sort of more and more
00:35:36.260
romantic so first of all he gets back and the royal geographical society you know had been founded
00:35:41.980
in 1830 it was was the you know most respected most powerful scientific institution in great britain and
00:35:50.200
they had this vaunted journal where they would publish the the reports of the men that they would send on
00:35:58.200
these expeditions and burton had had taken up a whole issue after after their last expedition
00:36:04.120
but speak a he hates to write and b he really wants as much attention as he can get so instead of giving
00:36:12.500
all of his information to the royal geographical society which had sponsored him which had sent him
00:36:17.340
there he decides he's going to publish it with blackwoods magazine which was a very well-known
00:36:23.440
magazine at that time because he thinks he'll get more readership and and more money and more attention
00:36:28.020
that way and so the royal geographical society is outraged and he gives them just sort of a poorly
00:36:34.800
written poorly researched um small report and so he's he's broken ties that way he also is very
00:36:41.660
critical of everyone there was some there's a poor guy named petherick who had agreed to try to help
00:36:47.860
resupply um speaking grants expedition and he had gone through hell and back he had lost two men on the
00:36:54.840
trip he and his wife was with him had nearly died and when he meets up with speak speaks angry that he
00:37:00.960
wasn't there earlier and is is telling people that oh yeah i think he's involved in the slave trade which
00:37:07.620
which he was not at all so he ruins his reputation and so people are starting to say what you know who is
00:37:15.280
this guy and um and what does he want you know we he's sort of dangerous and so he also is kind of cast
00:37:23.580
out so he and burton are are just on their own yeah the the writing sample that speak gave you
00:37:30.320
you you quoted in the book it didn't make any sense at all like i read it like three times this is like
00:37:36.500
my my eight-year-old could write better than this i know i know and and one of these strange twists of
00:37:42.240
fate that happens in history sometimes so so out of desperation blackwood this publisher he's like he
00:37:48.720
he's like speak has this great story to tell but he can't write it he just can't write it to
00:37:52.820
to save himself so they decide to hire a quote-unquote editor who's really a ghost writer for speak
00:37:59.280
to work with and as luck would have it the guy's last name was burton
00:38:03.340
but yeah i think it's a great example i mean it speaks like he had this vain ambition
00:38:09.080
but his envy and resentment eventually led to his downfall
00:38:13.700
yeah it did you know he as often happens i think when people are very arrogant they are very also
00:38:22.720
very insecure and he couldn't take any criticism he just wanted to be lauded all the time and yeah that
00:38:31.820
that it turns into this sort of festering resentment against everyone and you find yourself sort of cut
00:38:39.500
off okay so speak he he's technically discovered the source of the nile but he pretty much lucked
00:38:45.820
into it he's also at this time he's alienating the exploration community with how he's conducting
00:38:51.180
himself and you know meanwhile you also have burton who's on the outs in that community he still
00:38:58.220
believes lake tangania is the source of the nile so he and speak decide to argue this out in a public
00:39:06.040
debate but speak unexpectedly dies uh before the debate and it's a really it's a really dramatic
00:39:13.740
mysterious twist in the story and uh we're gonna we'll save that for readers of your books if you
00:39:19.680
want to know what happens there get the book but what's interesting about speaks posthumous legacy
00:39:25.220
is even though you know speak is the first european to discover the source of the nile
00:39:30.980
i had never heard of speak until i read your book but i did know who burton was so why does history
00:39:39.500
remember burton but overlook speak i think um well part of it is you know speak died then soon after
00:39:48.440
and and he just wasn't the personality that burton was you know i wrote a book about theodore roosevelt
00:39:55.300
and i always found it interesting you know roosevelt used to say himself if you don't have the great
00:40:00.200
event you don't have the great leader so he really wanted to be president during a war or like you
00:40:07.060
know the great depression or some big event where he could galvanize the nation and he didn't have that
00:40:12.960
but yet we remember him i mean he's one of the most well-known presidents in our nation's history
00:40:19.420
why i think because of his personality and it was the same with burton he was just absolutely
00:40:26.480
fascinating you know he he he was just this i mean you love to talk about him right he was
00:40:32.900
off the charts brilliant and he also he wrote so much we have all of his writings he was an
00:40:39.460
unbelievably gifted writer he spoke all of these languages he did all these other things and so he
00:40:46.900
is very memorable so yes you're right there there are dozens of biographies about richard burton
00:40:54.000
there's only one biography of speak and it was written i think in the 70s the 1970s so almost 100
00:41:03.060
years after his death and it's a really very slim biography we don't we don't know that much about
00:41:09.700
um his childhood or anything so there's just there's not that much to say about him
00:41:15.140
yes he's all hat no cattle yeah yeah and after this bombay had a after these expeditions he had a
00:41:22.440
good he did a lot of expeditions and exploring and map making correct yes you know it's incredible
00:41:27.800
it's again it's one of these things you think i can't believe i've never heard of i mean again i
00:41:32.020
worked at national geographic for six years we talked every day about exploration and about africa
00:41:38.240
i had never heard of city mubarak bombay so city mubarak bombay not only was he with burton and
00:41:44.320
speak going to the tanganyika and then with speak going to the nyanza he was with speak and grant when
00:41:49.780
speak came back to go to the nyanza again he was with henry morton stanley when he found david
00:41:56.460
livingston which was on the banks of the tanganyika and that you know the famous dr livingston i presume
00:42:02.880
bombay was there bombay helped make that happen and then he along with the explorer vernie levitt
00:42:09.980
cameron became the first to cross the entire continent from east to west sea to sea so he i
00:42:16.560
mean he it would be difficult to argue that anyone did more for the mapping of east africa
00:42:24.260
the continent of his birth then city mubarak bombay but very few people have heard his name
00:42:30.380
well candace this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book
00:42:34.580
which i think i told you earlier before this is the best book i've read so far this year
00:42:38.080
thank you so much it really means a lot to me so it's available everywhere where books are sold
00:42:43.260
and i do have a website candacemillard.com and i'm on you know twitter and instagram and all those
00:42:50.000
things so but i really really appreciate i i really enjoy the conversation thank you so much for
00:42:54.780
your interest in the book thanks candace it's been a pleasure my guest today was candace millard her new
00:42:59.800
book is river of the gods genius courage and betrayal in the search for the source of the
00:43:03.920
nile it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more information about
00:43:07.360
our work at our website candacemillard.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash river
00:43:12.440
where you can find links to resources where we delve deeper into this topic
00:43:15.180
well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at
00:43:26.180
art of manless.com where you can find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles written
00:43:30.020
over the years about pretty much anything you'd think of and if you'd like to enjoy ad free episodes
00:43:33.640
of the aom podcast you can do so on stitcher premium head over to stitcher premium.com sign
00:43:37.440
up use code manless at checkout for a free month trial once you're signed up download the stitcher
00:43:41.280
app on android ios and you can start enjoying ad free episodes of the aom podcast and if you haven't
00:43:45.420
done so already i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us review an apple podcast or
00:43:48.480
spotify it helps that a lot if you've done that already thank you please consider sharing the show
00:43:52.480
with a friend or family member who would think we get something out of it as always thank you for
00:43:55.820
the continued support until next time's brett mckay remind you not to listen to the aom podcast but put