Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone is used to describe something that offers a clue, deriving its name from the actual stone. The basalt stone was discovered in 1799 and fascinated people for its inscriptions in three different writing systems. The narrator describes the discovery of the stone that would allow for the understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics:
“The French had unearthed the forty-five-inch-tall stone two years earlier, in the summer of 1799, when Napoleon’s soldiers were trying to reinforce a crumbling, ancient fort on the west bank of the Nile, in the port of Rosetta. His officers immediately recognized that the dark gray slab was an object of extraordinary value, what scholars spent lifetimes hoping to find. On its face was etched a two-thousand-year-old decree written in three different languages: two unknown—Demotic, once the everyday language of the Egyptian people, and hieroglyphs, the tantalizingly mysterious language of its priests—and one known: ancient Greek”
Horn of Africa
The expedition to find the source of the River Nile took the explorers to the Horn of Africa, the location of Lake Victoria. Upon their arrival, they accustom themselves to the surroundings and the trade network that is flourishing in the region. The narrator describes the trade facilitation by the Somalis in the Horn of Africa:
“A largely pastoral people scattered throughout the lowlands of the eastern Horn of Africa, the Somalis had long ago developed a vigorous trade network with the towns along the Indian Ocean and Red Sea coast. With the rise of the Industrial Revolution, these networks had stretched even deeper into the interior and grew increasingly complex as Somali traders worked to meet European and North American demand for everything from goat and cow hides for leather to vegetable dyes for textiles and vegetable oils for cooking and soap, while still offering a wide variety of more traditional trade goods such as ivory, livestock, incense, ostrich feathers, and leopard skins.”
The Silent Continent
Africa was commonly referred to as the Dark Continent because it remained unexplored by foreigners for a long period. Among the first European explorers to search for the source of the River Nile Richard Francis Burton expresses the beauty and silence of East Africa:
“As it grew dark, Burton sat down to his notes but found it difficult to resist the beauty that surrounded him, the quickly vanishing fireflies, the murmuring of the black river at his feet. “All around reigned the eternal African silence, deep and saddening, broken only by the curlew’s scream, or by the breeze rustling the tree-tops, whispering among the matted foliage,” he wrote. “We sat under a tree till midnight, unsatiated with the charm of the hour. The moon rained molten silver over the dark foliage of the wild palms, the stars were as golden lamps suspended in the limpid air, and Venus glittered diamond-like upon the front of the firmament.”
Burlington House
The Royal Geographical Society funded the expedition to find the source of the river of gods. Therefore, Speke’s news that they had resolved the mystery of the source attracts a bigger crowd at the Burlington House than usual:
“Accustomed to a small, mild-mannered audience of gentlemen scientists, it was suddenly inundated with a surging throng so enormous and determined it shattered windows in the palatial building on Piccadilly. Inside, dignitaries from the Count of Paris to the Prince of Wales entered the dark-paneled lecture theater, filling its tiered rows of curved and cushioned seats. Many would linger after the lecture, examining the drawings and specimens that had been carefully arranged on a table. Others would be disappointed altogether, forced to stand outside the packed lecture hall hoping to hear what was said inside.”
