Essay Questions

What organization commissioned the expeditions for British explorers to search for the source of the Nile?

One does not simply charter a boat to sail to Africa and then disembark with backpacks and tents in order to penetrate into unmapped regions of a mysterious continent. The ability for either Richard Burton or John Speke to fund this type of endeavor on their own was beyond even consideration. And, besides, the whole point of the search for the source of the Nile was patriotic propaganda. Poised on the threshold of becoming the most dominant empire on the planet since ancient times, the power players in England foresaw the cache that would come with the discovery finally being made by a British explorer. A large aspect of the motivation behind expeditions commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society was more political in nature than scientific. The Victorian Era was one in which all international business was directed in one degree or another to affirming the unquestioned greatness of the British Empire.

What is the author implying in interviews in which she has asserted that the underlying theme of this story is the arrogance of exploration?

It is a story as old as exploration itself and it continued all the way to the moon. That American flag situated in a permanent wave assumed to still be solidly in place on the surface of the moon is no different from Speke’s decision to name a lake never seen by her after Queen Victoria. And the idea traces back to the very beginning of the Age of Exploration in which De Sota was credited with discovering the Mississippi River and Balboa with discovering the Pacific Ocean. It is the ultimate act of arrogance by the powerful to lay claim to discovering something that has already been known to untold thousands or millions of people over the course of thousands of years. Social critics have long argued that the very act of naming something is means of claiming power, often at the expensive of another. When that power grab is combined with the delusional belief that something already known to exist can be “discovered” by an interloper, the combination becomes an aggressive political act. And that has certainly been the history of exploration by more advanced civilizations into territory belonging to less advanced ones.

Since John Hanning Speke winds up committing suicide, can Sir Richard Burton be declared the winner in this rivalry?

Speke’s death was officially ruled an accident, but this has long been considered merely a political decision made to spare his reputation. Regardless of whether accident or suicide, Speke did die before conclusive proof of his claims could be confirmed or rejected. Burton would go on to live to nearly twice the age of Speke and in that respect, he must surely be accorded some sort of victory. But his reputation never fully recovered from questions about the role his rivalry with Speke played in the premature death of the younger man. In addition, the later years of Burton’s life were wracked by physical miseries caused by the exuberance of his earlier adventures. Adding to the downward spiral that marked Burton’s life was the confirmation made several years after Speke’s death by noted explorer Henry Stanley that Speke had, indeed, been right all along.