After a military interlude in the Crimea, Speke joined Burton's second Central African expedition in the winter of 1856, twice crossed Lake Tanganyika by canoe and finally pressed on to the Ukerewe Lake which he thought was the source of the Nile; Burton was sceptical.
Speke's courage, perseverance and toughness were heroic and his instinct for wild life and wild country remarkable.
In 1860 Speke was put in charge of a new expedition and finally penetrated to the place where the Nile flows out of Lake Victoria Nyanza.
First published in 1971, Alexander Maitland's biography remains the only full-length study of Speke.
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