Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/332

 other on 26 Sept., they marched north between the lakes Tanganyika and the Victoria Nyanza, through Bogue and Wanga, and arrived in November 1861 in Karague, where they were treated with great hospitality by the king, Rumanika. Leaving Grant invalidated in the care of Rumanika on 10 Jan. 1862, Speke proceeded north into Uganda. On 19 Feb. he arrived at the palace of Mtesa, the king of Uganda; here he was rejoined by Grant in May, and after tedious negotiations, extending over four months, he persuaded Mtesa, who on the whole treated him in a very friendly fashion, to facilitate the progress of the expedition northwards through the territory of Kamrasi, the king of Unyoro. The party left the capital of Uganda on 7 July, and, marching round the north-west shoulder of the Victoria Nyanza, struck the Nile at Urondogani on 21 July. Before the Nile was reached Grant was despatched with the bulk of the property to Chagusi, the capital of Unyoro. After trying in vain to secure boats in which to ascend the stream, Speke marched up the left bank, and on 28 July he reached the place where the Nile leaves the Victoria Nyanza, and named it Ripon Falls, after Lord Ripon, under-secretary of state for war, under whose auspices his expedition had been arranged by the Royal Geographical Society. Not being allowed by Mtesa's officers to do more than examine the falls, Speke started on his return down the stream on 31 July. With great difficulty he secured boats and attempted to continue his journey on the Nile, leaving Urondogani on 13 Aug., but was obliged to abandon the river owing to the hostility of the natives, and was only allowed, after long negotiation, to enter Unyoro by land. Not till 9 Sept. was he permitted to approach the palace of Kamrasi, the extremely suspicious king of Unyoro (N. lat. 1° 37′ 43″ E. long. 32° 19′ 49″). It was as difficult to get away from Kamrasi as it had been in the first instance to approach him, and Speke was not allowed to pass on his road north until 9 Nov., and then only at the cost of his last and best chronometer. Following the river, he reached the Karuma Falls on 19 Nov., here, where the Nile begins to make its great bend to the west, he was obliged to leave the stream owing to native warfare, and, travelling down the chord of the arc made by the river, he reached De Bono's ivory outpost (N. lat. 3° 10′ 37″) on 3 Dec. On 13 Jan. 1863 Speke, now marching with a contingent of Turks from the ivory station, reached Paira, within sight of the Nile, and thence travelling down the right bank of the stream by Apuddo, Madi, Marsan, and Doro, he arrived at Gondoroko on 15 Feb. Here he was met, and given cordial assistance, by Samuel (afterwards Sir Samuel) Baker, who, at his own expense, had organised another expedition. To Baker Speke gave willingly all the information he possessed as to the lake Luta Nzigé (Albert Nyanza), in and out of which he was well aware that the Nile flowed, but he erroneously regarded that lake as a backwater of the Nile. He planned the route by which Baker should go, and gave him a map of remarkable accuracy, considering that part of it was drawn on hearsay evidence; the map is now in the possession of the Royal Geographical Society. He thus enabled Baker to make his successful discovery of the third lake, Albert Nyanza (Sir Samuel Baker: a Memoir, by D. Murray, p. 97). A relief expedition, the funds for which had been raised by public subscription (February 1861), and the command of which had been given to Consul Petherick, was a failure, through the difficulties it experienced en route and the illness of its leader, and proved of no assistance to Speke.

Shortly after his arrival at Khartoum the foreign office received a message by telegram from Speke that all was well and the Nile traced to its source. This message created a great sensation when publicly communicated at the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on 11 May 1863. Honours were now showered on the successful explorers. At Gondoroko Speke first heard that the founders' medal of the Royal Geographical Society had been awarded to him for the discovery of the Victoria Nyanza. On his arrival at Alexandria he was entertained by the viceroy of Egypt, and the king of Sardinia presented him with a medal with the inscription ‘Honor est a Nilo.’ He was publicly received on landing at Southampton, and a special meeting of the Royal Geographical Society was called in his honour on 22 June 1863. Speke's ‘Journal of the Discovery of the Nile’ was published in the same year and was widely read; it was translated into French in 1869, and the author was invited to Paris and presented to the Emperor Napoleon, by whom he was promised assistance if he should undertake another expedition.

The fact that Speke's proof of the Victoria Nyanza being the source of the Nile was not absolute, owing to the stream being left for a considerable distance and the Luta Nzigé (Albert Nyanza) not being visited, rendered his achievement open to some doubt, and his discoveries and theories were criticised both by Miani, the Venetian