The Quest for the Secret Nile: Victorian Exploration in Equatorial Africa 1857-1900, and: R. J. Richard John Cuninghame 1871-1925: Naturalist, Hunter, Gentleman (review)

Beginning in the 1830s, Europeans, and especially the British, became obsessed with defining the sources of the Nile. This effort was initially dominated by armchair Sophists such as William Desborough Cooley, James MacQueen, and Charles Tilstone Beke. They attempted to deduce the Nile sources and other geographic features of Africa through the formalistic application of the methods of medieval scholasticism to Arab, classical, medieval, and Portuguese texts. Their painstaking pursuit of geographic truth through meticulous but faulty logic eventually came into direct conflict with the findings of those who had seen the equatorial snow-covered mountains, lakes, and rivers of East Africa. The reputations of these stay-at-home geographers rested on their deduced assertions. Small wonder, then, that they promptly disparaged early reports of geographic findings gathered in the field that were not in harmony with their own views. Thus the reports of Johann Rebmann about Mount Kilimanjaro and Ludwig Krapf about Mount Kenya in the late 1840s were not received by an unbiased audience. Guy Yeoman begins his fascinating account with an overview of what was known to the armchair geographers, and how the Rebmann and Krapf findings represented the first challenge to their erroneous opinions.

Using a chronological approach, he covers the expeditions of the principal travelers who elucidated the Nile sources over the following quarter of a century. This includes Richard Francis Burton, John Hanning Speke, James Augustus Grant, Samuel and Florence Baker, David Livingstone, and Henry Morton Stanley. He recounts the now legendary controversy between Burton and Speke, and the latter's untimely death just prior to their scheduled debate at Bath in 1864.

As many will recognize, this is all very familiar ground, well documented in a wealth of primary and secondary sources, and recounted in numerous popular and scholarly books over the past century and a half. The obvious question, then, is what is unique about The Quest for the Secret Nile, what sets it apart from other recent popular accounts such as Alan Moorhead's The White Nile? There are several characteristics of this volume that make it a unique contribution in a crowded field. The author, a mountaineer and veterinary surgeon, spent twelve years in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). He traveled extensively over the routes of the nineteenth-century explorers, mounted several expeditions through the Rwenzori and Virunga mountain ranges, and widely photographed the Nile watershed.

In later years, Yeoman became an ardent environmentalist, greatly concerned by the deforestation that threatens the thousands of remote sources of the great Nile. It was his hope that this volume would draw attention to the fragility of these sources and motivate people to protect them, not least of all in the interests of ensuring the survival of the Nile itself. This account, then, was written by someone who climbed the mountains, sailed the rivers and lakes, and sought out the numerous springs and brooks that represent the sources of the Nile.

Two other features make this volume unique. Fifty of the author's prize-winning color photographs of the region illustrate relevant portions of the text. The author also provides a number of maps, several of which show the routes of the explorers discussed. The Quest for the Secret Nile reflects the same sensitivity and engaging style present in the author's previous book, Africa's Mountains of the Moon: Journeys to the Snow Sources of the Nile (1989). Taken together, these provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of the Nile sources and an appreciation for the beauty and grandeur of this corner of Africa. Posthumously published, The Quest for the Secret Nile combines a stirring recounting of history with a passionate plea to conserve a unique environment under threat by deforestation and...